186 ANIMAL LIFE AND HUMAN PROGRESS 



learn about the plants they tended and worked with. An 

 here and there were laboratories where each worker had an 

 allotted place. Glass-houses there were also where these were 

 required. Further, they told me that in another land across 

 the equator there were gardens where in winter they could 

 grow the seeds that had ripened in the summer, and thus have 

 seeds of a further generation to sow in the following spring. 

 In this way they could accomplish in one year the work that 

 would otherwise take two years to perform. 



When any of them had made a new plant that seemed of 

 value it was tested by being grown in larger quantities on 

 farm lands near by. And if it proved to be better than those 

 which existed before, it was eventually distributed through the 

 State farms to growers all over the country. Nor was the 

 labour of him or her who made it forgotten, for it was held 

 that an addition to the wealth of the State was deserving of 

 reward. 



There were many trees near the gardens and I was told 

 that there were workers upon these also, who had made new 

 kinds, growing faster and producing better wood than those 

 from which they had started. Posterity, they said, would 

 benefit from these more than themselves, but they held that 

 they had a duty towards those that came after them, seeing 

 that they themselves owed much to those who had gone before. 



Leaving the garden plots, I wandered to a group of scattered 

 buildings which I found to be houses for the breeding of small 

 animals and birds. Here, as with the plants, were preserved 

 the purified strains which had resulted from the labours of 

 earlier workers. They were the standard reagents which 

 might at any time be required for unravelling special problems. 

 Here also were laboratories for those who devoted their time 

 to understanding the physiology and pathology of the domestic 

 animals. Beyond was a wide tract of farmland, where the 

 larger animals, sheep and swine and cattle, had their quarters. 

 Nor should I forget to mention the library and the meeting-hall 

 where the many workers constantly gathered together for the 

 discussion of the new knowledge which they or others had 

 discovered. 



