GENERAL NOTES 21 



property and wild apes find easy living without 

 touching a hoe. China is not densely populated 

 where tigers live. The crowding is a social matter 

 and will not be real until wild apes have to take to 

 the hoe. Tradition in agriculture has meant wicked 

 waste of opportunity in America and it is now time 

 for us to awaken to the situation and teach the old 

 world what may be done with our new agriculture 

 based upon nut tree crops. 



The reasons for development of a new world-wide 

 agriculture relate to the difficulty which the farmer 

 finds in meeting modern conditions. He has passed 

 what is called the pivotal point and is now face to 

 face with the law of diminishing returns. This is 

 but a repetition of history belonging to established 

 method which is practical until changing conditions 

 call for changing method. 



While botanists sat upon their stools laboriously 

 turning over petals in a search for new classifica- 

 tions, troubling each other without making great 

 advance, medicine opened up the great new field of 

 bacteriology and successfully conducted a whole 

 revolution which might otherwise have gone to the 

 credit of botany. In much the same way agricul- 

 tural development of standard food materials has 

 meant technical study of such standard materials 

 rather than emergence into brand-new fields of sup- 

 ply. 



A great development of cereals took place as a 

 result of experimental work during the nineteenth 

 century, but the twentieth century is to go on record 



