STAIRCASE FARMS OF THE ANCIENTS 



475 



Like Egypt in the later dynasties, the 

 Peruvians of the Inca age appear to have 

 declined somewhat from the standard of 

 industry, patience, and perfection indi- 

 cated by the stone work of the earlier 

 period. In other respects progress may 

 have been made. Thus the Incas may 

 have been better organized and more effi- 

 cient from the standpoint of government 

 and military activity, as were the Romans 

 in comparison with the Greeks. The 

 modern Ouichuas are still an agricultural 

 and pastoral people, but they show no 

 tendency to imitate the constructive un- 

 dertakings of their predecessors. 



STAGES OF AGRICULTURAL PROGRESS 



In order to appreciate the high devel- 

 opment of the ancient agriculture of 

 Peru, we have to consider briefly the 

 stages that mark the progress of agricul- 

 ture from the simplest beginnings to the 

 most advanced expression of the art. 



In the most primitive form of agricul- 

 ture, still widely practiced in the tropics, 

 the land is not permanently or continu- 

 ously occupied. New clearings are made 

 every season by cutting and burning. 

 Corn is planted and harvested, and then 

 the forest growth is allowed to spring up 

 again. This nomadic system of annual 

 cornfields, or mil pas, as they are called in 

 Central America, is practiced in all trop- 

 ical countries of low elevation. 



Tillage agriculture is the next stage. 

 In order to use land for more than one 

 season, tillage is necessary, at least to the 

 extent of stirring the surface soil and de- 

 stroying weeds, so that seeds can be 

 planted. 



A third stage is reached when tillage 

 agriculture is improved by the applica- 

 tion of manure, fish or seaweeds, or by 

 using decayed vegetable matter or "green 

 manure" to increase the fertility of the 

 soil. Another step beyond tillage, with 

 or without the use of fertilizers, is irri- 

 gation — the artificial application of water 

 to the soil. Irrigation must have begun 

 in regions where it was easy to supple- 

 ment the natural rainfall by diverting 

 streams, as in the steep mountain valleys 

 of Peru. 



Doubtless all of the preceding forms of 

 agriculture were represented in Peru in 



ancient times, as they are at the present 

 day; but they must have had relatively 

 little importance in comparison with a 

 type still more advanced — a type quite 

 unknown to the American farmer and 

 scarcely to be seen in the United States, 

 except to a very slight extent in orna- 

 mental grounds. This most specialized 

 type of agriculture includes all of the 

 preceding features ■ — ■ tillage, fertilizing, 

 and watering the crops ; but another is 

 added — the artificial construction of the 

 soil on which the crops are grown. /;/ 

 the valleys where the ancient Peruvian 

 agriculture zvas centered, most of the 

 agricultural land is not natural soil, but 

 has been assembled and put in place arti- 

 ficially (see also page 494). 



MARVELOUS TERRACE AGRICULTURE 



This most specialized type may be de- 

 scribed as terrace agriculture, and is seen 

 in its most conspicuous form when nar- 

 row terraces are built on steep slopes. 

 Such terraces are found in many other 

 countries, though it is doubtful whether 

 any equal those of Peru. In Peru the 

 artificial reconstruction of the soil sur- 

 face was not limited to the terraced 

 slopes, but was also undertaken in large 

 areas of reclaimed land in the bottoms 

 of the valleys. The courses of the rivers 

 were narrowed and straightened by 

 strong walls, and then the land behind 

 the walls was filled in, and finally a sur- 

 face layer of fine agricultural soil was 

 put on. 



The entire region that represents the 

 chief center of the Inca empire and its 

 Megalithic predecessors affords very little 

 of the level or gently sloping natural soil 

 that we would consider well suited to 

 agriculture. Most of the level land is on 

 the high plateaus, where the climate is too 

 cold or too uncertain for the growth of 

 crops, so that planting is confined largely 

 to the slopes to avoid the danger of frosts 

 in the growing season. 



To us in the United States this labori- 

 ous construction of the artificial lands in 

 the warmer valleys seems almost incred- 

 ible. Even irrigation agriculture appears 

 to us as a new and very specialized 

 branch of the art, and we think ourselves 

 very enterprising to have undertaken the 



