CHAPTER III. 



THE EVOLUTION OF THE FARMER. 



IF, as the result of some natural cause, the mean annual 

 temperature of the United States should be reduced ten 

 degrees within the space of a few years, it is evident that 

 many plants which now flourish in that region would find it 

 impossible to survive. Others would struggle on in the effort 

 to live, and among these the hardier individuals would pull 

 through. They w^ould not, however, have altogether the same 

 character that was before typical of the species, but would be 

 more or less changed. The natural conditions would no longer 

 suffice to produce a product identical with the former, but the 

 organs of the plant would be made use of to produce something 

 more or less similar. The place of those species whose entire 

 organism was destroyed would be filled by new species cal- 

 culated to thrive under the new conditions. Between those 

 plants which died outright and those which promptly adapted 

 themselves to the new environment, there would be some 

 classes which would struggle hard and long, and of which 

 some would eventually survive in a modified form, while 

 others would give up the fight and perisli. 



This illustration is but a supposed application of a uni- 

 versal law operating through all nature, animate and inani- 

 mate. Had its bearings upon brute animal life been chosen 

 for the example, other factors would have had to be considered, 

 as the power of locomotion, the power to choose food, and to 

 protect themselves in various ways, as their instinct might 

 prompt them. The law, however, would operate. With still 

 greater limitations, it would also operate on man. 



What has been supposed as having happened in the natural 

 world is almost exactly analogous to what has actually hap- 

 pened in the world of affairs. The prodigious activity of man 

 in his conflict witli nature ha-s caused changes of conditions to 

 (18) 



