FOOD PLANTS OF ANCIENT AMERICA. 497 



Botanical evidence makes it plain that most of the plants shared by 

 the people of the two continents originated in America, like numer- 

 ous other cultivated species which remained limited to this continent. 

 The primitive culture peoples of the tropical regions of ancient America 

 were accustomed to the cooking, g-rinding, and storing of vegetable 

 food, and were thus prepared to appreciate and utilize the cereals b}^ 

 agricultural experience lacking among- the fruit-eating aborigines of 

 the Old World, where there seems to have been no tendency toward a 

 spontaneous development of agriculture. Civilizations have nowhere 

 developed without the assistance of the farinaceous root crops and 

 cereals, the use and cultivation of which are habits acquired by primi- 

 tive luan in America and carried in remote times westward across the 

 Paciiic, together with the social organization and constructive arts 

 w^hich appear only in settled communities supported by the tillage of 

 the soil. 



