on a small scale. The native Australians make a beverage by dissolving manna, a sweet substance which exudes from the leaves of certain gum trees, and gum acacia in water. Reference has already been made to a kind of cider made from manzanita berries by the California Indians. Referring to this beverage, Campbell does not seem to regard it as an alcoholic beverage, although he calls it a liquor. He says, "The precibiculturists are wholly ignorant of the art of making alcohol, and that discovery belongs to the agricultural period." It undoubtedly is true, in the main, that the ancient precibiculturists were probably entirely ignorant of how to make alcohol. Dr. Charles Rice (16) in a private letter referred to by an anonymous author said that while he supposed it was quite possible that the Hindoos knew distilled spirits quite early, it has been found that we cannot go back beyond about 910 A. D. for any positive evidence. The precibiculturists who live at the present time are for the most part ignorant of that art, but not entirely so. Further valuable information with respect to the history of distillation is given by Dr. C. E. Pellew (15) and Babcock (14).

CIBICULTURAL EPOCH

The discovery or invention of cookery, especially of that branch which rendered the boiling of liquids feasible, was the first and perhaps the most important factor in the evolution of man's diet. The introduction of agriculture and the domestication of animals led to a further advance. Whether or not agriculture preceded the domestication of animals is of small consequence. Scott Elliott (2) seems inclined to think that domestication of animals was brought about first, while Campbell is of the opinion that agriculture had its beginning before the herdsman came into being. Campbell says that it is certain that in the New World, at any rate, plants were cultivated before animals were domesticated. Scott Elliott and most writers on prehistoric times regard Asia as the original home of the human species.

Domestication of Animals.-The taming and subjection of wild animals was an immense advance in civilization. From remains it appears probable that almost all our domestic animals were first brought under human control in Asia. The dog was the first animal to be domesticated, but as he was not eaten, except under unusual circumstances, it will be unnecessary to consider the manner in which his progenitor, the wolf, was subdued and trained. The reindeer affords a good example of the way in

which animals are domesticated. The Tschuktchi, a tribe who live in a cold and inhospitable part of northeastern Asia, possess half wild herds of these animals. They are only half tamed and are liable to stampede at any time. These tribesmen have faint ideas of breeding, but the animals are only used for food and clothing. The Lapps have herds of reindeer, which are much more domesticated; these animals supply them with flesh and clothing, milk and cheese, and in addition do draught work.

Cows seem to have been first domesticated some twelve thousand years ago, probably at Anan in Turkestan. The history of the sheep is even more difficult to trace, but the goat is said to be descended from the wild species of Asia Minor and the Grecian Islands. Swine flesh as a food was of greater importance in prehistoric times than now. In Cæsar's time, pork with milk was the main diet of the Celts and their hams had a wide reputation in the Roman world. The history of the common hog resembles in most respects that of other animals. The greater part of our modern breeds are descended from the almost universally distributed wild boar.

Introduction of Agriculture.-Campbell puts the commencement of the agricultural period at 30,000 years ago, and if this conjecture is correct, then that period began some thousands of years before the domestication of animals.

It is certain, however, that both of these forward steps greatly multiplied man's opportunities to ascend in the scale of development, and solidified his position as the undisputed ruler of the animal kingdom. Before these times he was compelled to spend most of his time hunting for food. His brain power was encouraged to develop in one direction only. When he was able to cultivate the greater part of his food supply, and raise animals of many kinds as well as build vessels to catch fish, his position was assured. He was no longer at the mercy of the elements or of chance, but could train them in many and diverse directions. Diet, therefore, has had a preponderating influence upon the evolution of man, and he has ascended largely by means of this evolution. Again, so long as cooking, in all its branches, was unknown; cultivation of plants undiscovered and domestication of animals not practiced; man was unable to rise much above the level of brute creation.

At first, agriculture was carried on in a desultory manner. The ground was not actually cultivated, but areas of virgin soil were utilized for raising crops and then abandoned for some other location of a like character. Man was still more the hunter than the farmer; the habits of generations could not be given up at once, and for a long period he hunted

and fished and lived chiefly on flesh. At best, his methods of cultivation were elementary.

As agriculture developed, he began to obtain the bulk of his animal food from domesticated animals and fishing, and his vegetable food was supplied chiefly by his farming activities, although he still ate small amounts of uncultivated vegetable food. His progress in the methods of cultivating land and of breeding animals was necessarily slow. Certain races of men were better adapted for what may be termed stationary agriculture than others. To the long-headed Mediterranean races may be credited the beginnings of agriculture, and to the brachycephalic type of mankind, inhabitants of Asia, may be attributed the domestication of animals.

STATIONARY AGRICULTURE.—It is a fascinating study to try to trace the origin of any happening which has conduced to the betterment of the race, and naturally the question of the beginnings of stationary agriculture are of supreme interest. At best, it is largely guess work and the nearest guess as to the date of the first harvest is between 15000 B. C. and 10000 B. C. A few thousand years, when considering the evolution of man's diet, is of no especial moment. Campbell puts the commencement of stationary agriculture at 15,000 years ago. Our cultivated plants should supply some sort of an explanation of this puzzle. If most of them are found wild in one district, the likelihood is that the first harvest field was in this section. However, it is obvious that there must have been two centers, one of which was in the Old World and the other in the New World. According to Herodotus, at the time the pyramids were built in Chaldea, 5000 B. C., onions, leek, garlic, carrot, parsnip, turnip, beet and lettuce were cultivated, while wheat, barley, rye, oats and rice had been used for 5,000 years.

EARLY AGRICULTURE IN AMERICA.-In America, in Mexico and Peru, about the same time, agriculture, including methods of manuring, irrigation, was as well understood as in Egypt or Mesopotamia. Of the American plants the following are the most important: maize, scarlet runner and vegetable marrow, which appear to be natives of Mexico or Central America. Constantin and Bois(6) found in Peruvian tombs at Ancon four kinds of maize. Ground nut, manioc, potato, canavali, kidney bean, phaseolus lunatus and tomato came from Peru or Chile. In fact, the Jerusalem artichoke is the only American plant which has not been traced to Mexico or Peru.

Indeed, an American work dealing with the relation of the development of agriculture, to the evolution of man's diet, would not be complete

without a summary of early American agriculture, and of the mode in which the aborigines of this continent raised their crops.

It is erroneous to believe that when America was first discovered by the white man, the Indian inhabitants were mere hunters. Of course, they depended largely upon the bison for their animal food, but according to the records of the early discoverers, a considerable proportion of the Indians from the border of the western plains to the Atlantic dwelt in settled villages and cultivated the soil. De Soto found all the tribes that he visited, from the Florida peninsula to the western part of Arkansas, cultivating maize and other food plants. The earliest voyagers found the same thing true along the Atlantic shore from Florida to Massachusetts. Capt. John Smith and his Jamestown Colony depended at first for subsistence largely upon the products of Indian cultivation. Jacques Cartier had the same experience, while Champlain and La Salle found Indians in the parts of the continent through which they traveled, cultivating and subsisting on maize. "Indian corn, the great American cereal," said Brinton (7), "was found in cultivation from the southern extremity of Chile to the 50th parallel of N. latitude." Du Pratz (8) remarked, “All the nations who inhabit from the sea as far as the Illinois, and even further, carefully cultivate the maize corn, which they make their principal subsistence."

The great length of the period during which maize had been in cultivation previous to the discovery of America is proved by its differentiation into varieties and by the fact that charred corn and impressions of corn on burnt clay have been found in the tombs and in the ruins of prehistoric Pueblos in the Southwest. Delaware traditions and proofs found among the remains of the oldest mounds also show that the Indians must have been tillers of the soil in very early times.

Not only are we indebted to the Indians for the maize itself, but also the methods of planting, storing and using it. Bancroft (9) says that "from the earliest information we have of the Pueblo Indians, they are known to have been tillers of the soil, and though the implements used and their methods of cultivation were both simple and primitive, cotton, corn, and wheat after its introduction, beans, with many varieties of fruit, were raised in abundance." It has been mentioned that the very early inhabitants of Mexico comprehended the art of cultivating the soil by means of irrigation and manuring. The same so far as irrigation is concerned may be said regarding the Indians of New Mexico and Arizona. Hodge (10) says, “In the valleys of the Salado and Gila, in South Arizona, however, casual observation is sufficient to demonstrate that the

ancient inhabitants engaged in agriculture by artificial irrigation to a vast extent."

There is evidence also to show that the early Indians used fertilizers. The Plymouth colonists were told by the Indians to add fish to the old grounds (Bradford, 11). The implements they employed in cultivating the ground are described as "wooden howes" and "spades made of hardwood." Mention is also made of shells used as digging implements. Certain stone implements found in vast numbers are generally conceded to have been used in breaking up the soil.

PRIMITIVE MILLING.-It will be in place to refer briefly to the primitive ways of grinding corn. In Chile within recent years, Scott Elliott (2) has witnessed threshing of corn by driving a herd of brood mares round and round in a circle, and in so doing hammering out the corn with their hoofs. In Palestine oxen were used for the same purpose. It is possible that at first corn was simply steeped in water and not ground at all(12). The first mill was obviously any convenient flat rock, upon which the ears of corn were spread and crushed and bruised by a stone. The quern was the most effective early appliance for grinding grain into meal or flour, and consists of two circular stones, the lower firmly placed in a wooden frame. Through the upper stone is pierced a small hole, in which a short stick is tightly fixed. A woman turns this stick in the same way as a millstone and thus grinds the grain. Such mills date back to the Copper Age, and have survived up to recent times in civilized countries.

But to return to the general discussion on the development of agriculture, it is evident that the establishment of a system of stationary agriculture meant the establishment of what we know as civilization. So long as man was wholly or mainly concerned in searching for and preparing food, his aims were wholly materialistic, for he could not give the time. to any other employment. After the domestication of animals, the cultivation of the land and the practice of cooking had been placed on a sound basis, man was comparatively free to launch out in new fields of endeavor. By the planting of the first seed or by the placing in the ground of the first kernel, the possibilities for human development were immeasurably advanced. Crops yielded twenty or thirty fold in a good fertile soil, therefore sufficient food for a large family could be raised on a small

area.

INFLUENCE OF AGRICULTURE UPON CIVILIZATION.-This state of affairs rendered possible the forming of communities where men could permanently enjoy the society of their fellow men. By such means a new type of man was evolved, and instead of being the bond-servant of nature,