44 TILLERS OF THE GROUND CHAP. 



tried to cultivate the native plants, but then 

 we must remember that such a plant as wheat, for 

 instance, has been cultivated for more than four 

 thousand years. Perhaps some of the Australian 

 grasses would be good to eat if they were cultivated 

 for four thousand years, but it is rather long 

 to wait ! It is much wiser now to take the old 

 cultivated plants than to try to make new ones. 



We might spend a long time trying to think of 

 the reasons why the cultivated plants all arose in 

 the three special parts of the earth's surface, and 

 why cultivation arose there too ; but perhaps it is 

 sufficient just to suggest the one or two reasons 

 given above, and to go on to show that, whatever 

 was the reason, the fact gave the people of those 

 regions an advantage which they have never lost. 

 This is specially true of the Mediterranean peoples 

 and the peoples of the Far East. If we take the 

 map of the world and look at it, we shall find that 

 these peoples or their descendants, armed with their 

 cultivated plants, have literally inherited the earth. 



We are apt to think that it is because the 

 European has guns that he has spread all over the 

 globe, but it is really because he has wheat and other 

 plants. His guns would not help him permanently 

 without the wheat. In the same way the teeming 

 multitudes of China and Japan are the direct result 

 of the skill of the people in growing food ; the 



