GEOGRAPHY OF PLANTS. 69 



extends through the Pacific ; the sago palm is 

 grown in the Moluccas, the cabbage tree in the 

 Pelew islands. 



In this manner the various tribes of men are 

 provided with vegetable food. Some however live 

 on their cattle, and thus make the produce of the 

 earth only mediately subservient to their wants. 

 Thus the Tatar tribes depend on their flocks and 

 herds for food : the taste for the flesh of the horse 

 seems to belong to the Mongols, Fins, and other 

 descendants of the ancient Scythians : the locust 

 eaters are found now, as formerly, in Africa. 



Many of these differences depend upon custom, 

 soil, and other causes with which we do not here 

 meddle ; but many are connected with climate : 

 and the variety of the resources which man thus 

 possesses, arises from the variety of constitution 

 belonging to cultivable vegetables, through which 

 one is fitted to one range of climate, and another 

 to another. We conceive that this variety and 

 succession of fitness for cultivation, shows un- 

 doubted marks of a most foreseeing and benevo- 

 lent design in the Creator of man and of the world. 



3. By differences in vegetables of the kind we 

 have above described, the sustentation and grati- 

 fication of man's physical nature is copiously 

 provided for. But there is another circumstance, 

 a result of the difference of the native products of 

 different regions, and therefore a consequence of 

 that difference of climate on which the difference 



