in SOME CONTRASTS 37 



wherever they have gone they have been able to 

 change their methods to suit the new conditions ; 

 they have succeeded in doing what the natives of 

 those countries could not or did not do. 



The man whom we saw building his house in 

 the desert of Arizona is perhaps the son of an 

 Englishman, perhaps a Norwegian, perhaps a 

 Swede ; at least, either he or his fathers have 

 probably come from Northern or Central Europe. 

 Yet he will soon learn to grow strange plants 

 which perhaps his fathers never saw, and he will 

 grow them as well as the people who have been 

 growing them for countless generations. This is 

 what we mean by the power of adaptation, and 

 that is a power which only comes with skill and 

 knowledge. It is the power which the poor 

 Australian had not, and it is the want of it which 

 is causing him to die out. 



CHAPTEE IV 



THE BEGINNINGS OF AGRICULTURE 



THE other day a little boy was given a piece of 

 ground for a garden. He was full of plans as to 

 the future, and was certain that his garden would 



