CHAPTER IV 

 ARE THERE ENOUGH PLANTS? 



The Age of Meagerness. The era of scarcity was a long and 

 arduous one for all primitive peoples, and particularly for those out- 

 side the tropic zone. Even when prehistoric man graduated from 

 hunting, fishing and the gathering of wild plants to the more reliable 

 herding and crop growing he still was severely restricted by lack of 

 effective tools and by the depredations of wild animals. All life was 

 pecarious. 



With the development of irrigation civilizations along the Nile 

 and in the twin valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates, the common man 

 benefitted little from the comparative plenty of these garden spots of 

 the world. Within sight of the magnificent structures celebrated in 

 history stood the mud huts of the producer. Like a thread, running 

 through the warp of human society is the story of power and wealth 

 drained from the many into the hands of a few. Slavery for the 

 conquered and high taxes for the native kept the rank and file on a 

 near level with the beasts of the fields. Through those later bright 

 spots of human achievement, Palestine, Greece, and Rome, the shadows 

 of poverty, unemployment, disease, and hunger are ever visible. 



A thousand years of the Dark Ages, with its feudal system, re- 

 peated the pattern of relative plenty for a few and degradation for 

 the many. The production of food was an ever present battle with 

 need, and if the few ate well, the many were lean. 



Yet, such improvement in food supply as had been achieved was 

 based on the discovery by some primitive cave dweller that seeds pro- 

 duced plants, that human effort could multiply the number which 

 Avould grow and mature. 



During the medieval period, machinery had its elemental birth, 

 though power was still largely a matter of muscle, mostly man, partly 

 beast. 



The Age of Plenty. The beginning of the era of plenty (in 

 Western Civilization) may be dated roughly from the period of ex- 

 ploration, starting with Columbus' discovery of the new world, an 

 area rich with the stored natural energy and materials of millions of 

 years. Almost at once the exporting of American resources to Eu- 

 rope began. First it was gold, but soon it was lumber, and potash 

 from burned forest monarchs, fish, hams, wheat, corn, furs all the 

 seemingly inexhaustible products of the newly found storehouse. 



In payment for these goods, Europe sent back money, the capital 

 which spurred the further exploration and exploitation of America. 



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