PLANTS AND OURSELVES 15 



together with their neighbors for mutual protection, and 

 to help each other with the crops. Men living together 

 form what we call society. Thus you can see the truth of 

 the statement that " society grew out of waiting for the 

 crops." It was plant life which made men cease their 

 roaming and settle down. It was farming that created 

 society, and it is farming that sustains it to-day. It was 

 from farming principally that cities grew and nations arose. 

 Thus it is that the cultivation of plants has made our 

 own lives what they are. It is the farmer, the man who 

 works with plants, whose work is the most necessary of all. 

 It is upon what he produces and does not use himself that 

 all the rest of us live. It is the land and the plants which 

 they bear which have made our history what it is, and they 

 are to-day far more necessary to our existence than are 

 cities and all the rest of civilization. 



5. The Improvement of Crops. — After farming began, 

 men learned how to improve their crops. They learned to 

 do more than simply clear the land and plant. They 

 learned to plow. They learned that the stirring of the 

 soil improves the growth of plants upon it. They learned 

 to save for seed the better ears of grain, and to transplant 

 cuttings from the better vines and fruit trees. They 

 learned to make the soil more fertile by putting certain 

 substances upon it. They learned that it is best not to 

 grow the same crop upon the same field season after season ; 

 that it is better to change in some seasons to other crops. 

 They learned to cross one plant with another, and thus 

 they produced new kinds which were of value. In these 

 and in many other ways they improved their crops, and, 

 as farming went on through some thousands of years, the 



