v THE SPKEADING OF FOOD-PLANTS 59 



the back of this rapid rise there has been patient, 

 toilsome work, work of which numbers of people 

 know nothing, because the Tajimas of to-day do 

 not always even get a monument erected to them 

 in the churchyard. It is this silent continuous 

 work which makes the prosperity of new countries 

 possible. 



One or two examples will show us the kind of 

 work that has to be done. For instance, it is very 

 obvious, is it not, that if we were trying to intro- 

 duce new plants into a country, the first point we 

 should have to consider would be the climate ? It 

 would be no use trying to grow plants from the 

 south of Spain or Italy in Canada or Alaska. But 

 how are we to find out exactly what is the climate 

 of a place ? The people of a particular region can, 

 of course, always give a general idea. We all know, 

 for instance, that in England it is never very -cold 

 in winter and never very hot in summer. But how 

 many of us could say exactly how hot it is in 

 summer, exactly how much rain there is in the 

 year, and when the first frost comes in autumn ? 



Even people who have lived the whole of a long 

 life in a country have often quite vague ideas in 

 regard to its climate, and yet when it comes to be a 

 matter of introducing new plants, the amount of 

 summer heat, the amount of rain in the year, the 

 time when winter begins, are all of the greatest 



