28 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



watered every where, before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, 

 even as the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest 

 unto Zoar. Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot 

 journeyed east: and they separated themselves the one from the 

 other. Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelt in the 

 cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom. 1 



4. EARLY PASTORAL LIFE IN NORTHERN EUROPE 8 

 BY WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM 



The earliest evidence which we possess in regard to those Germans 

 among whom the English tribes were included dates from a time when 

 they had not completely emerged from a nomadic state; apart from 

 this direct evidence we might have inferred on general grounds that 

 they must have pursued a pastoral life at some period. The economy 

 of any tribes who lived in the distant home of the Aryan race must 

 have been of this character, while the wandering of tribes not the 

 incursion of a horde of conquerors is scarcely intelligible unless we 

 suppose them accompanied by their flocks and herds. One most 

 important occasion for the wandering of these tribes must have been 

 a lack of fodder, and they would take the direction which presented 

 the least obstacles to their continued livelihood from their herds. 

 Level plains and river courses would offer favorite lines of progress; 

 while the rapid multiplication, which seems to have continued in the 

 regions from which they came, would always urge an onward move- 

 ment. But at length they would find themselves opposed by obstacles 

 which prevented any farther advance; there were no means of trans- 

 port by which a nomadic people could convey their herds across the 

 German Ocean, while the Roman armies prevented the farther prog- 

 ress of the barbarian tribes, as tribes. In some such way as this the 

 English were forced to settle down on the strip of land in Frisia, where 

 they were sooner or later compelled to eke out their subsistence from 

 their herds by means of tillage, and from which they subsequently 

 emerged to conquer Britain. 



1 It is evident that beginnings of settled agriculture were made at an early 

 day. Even upon the occasion of the visit of Abraham's servant seeking a wife 

 for Isaac, the maid at the well says: "We have both straw and provender enough 

 and room to lodge in." References to the threshing of grain, the cultivation of 

 vineyards, and the care of olive trees are also numerous in the Old Testament. 

 EDITOR. 



* Growth of English Industry and Commerce, pp. 28-30. (Cambridge Univer- 

 sity Press.) 



