THE North Temperate Zone is the work-shop of the world. In the Frigid and Torrid Zones nature is preeminent. She defeats human labour in the former, by her sterility; in the latter she makes it unnecessary, by her luxuriance. But the supremacy of Man is the leading characteristic of the temperate regions of the globe. They contain three-fourths of the whole human race. Within them civilization has been most highly developed; and there the great events of history have been enacted, both in ancient and in modern times.
This activity and movement are due in a great measure to the influences of climate. In temperate climes, says Guyot, "the alternations of heat and cold, the changes of the seasons, a fresher and more bracing air, incite man to a constant struggle, to forethought, and to the vigorous employment of all his faculties. A more economical nature yields nothing, except to the sweat of his brow; every gift on her part is a recompense for effort on his. Nature here, even while challenging man to the conflict, gives him the hope of victory; and if she does not show herself prodigal, she grants to his active and intelligent labour more than his necessities require. While she calls out his energy, she thus gives him ease and leisure, which permit him to cultivate all the lofty faculties of his higher nature. Here, physical nature is not a tyrant, but a useful helper: the active faculties, the understanding, and the reason, rule over the instincts and the passive faculties; the soul over the body; man over nature.
"In the frozen regions man also contends with nature, but it is with a niggardly and severe nature; it is a desperate struggle-a struggle for life. With difficulty, by force of toil,he succeeds in providing for himself a miserable support, which saves him from dying of hunger and hardship during the tedious winters of that climate. High culture is not possible under such unfavourable conditions."The excessive heat of the Tropics, on the other hand, enfeebles man. It invites to repose and inaction. Not only in the vegetable world and in the lower animals is the power of life carried to its highest degree, -in tropical man, too, physical nature excels. There the life of the body overmasters that of the soul. The physical instincts eclipse the higher faculties; passion predominates over intellect and reason; the passive over the active faculties.
"A nature too rich, too prodigal of her gifts, does not compel man to wrest from her his daily bread by his daily①toil. A regular climate, and the absence of a dormant season,render forethought of little use to him. Nothing invites him to that struggle of intelligence against nature which raises the powers of man to their highest pitch. Thus he never dreams of resisting physical nature: he is conquered by her; he submits to the yoke, and becomes again the animal man, in proportion as he abandons himself to external influences, forgetful of his high moral destination."While a temperate climate is thus most favourable for developing man"s intellectual vigour and physical strength, it is also most suitable for those animal and vegetable products which are best adapted to meet the wants of the great mass of mankind. Thus the ox and the sheep-the ruminants most useful to man-are natives of the Temperate Zone, and are diffused very widely and in vast numbers over it. From his home in Central Asia, the horse-the indispensable ally of man in every kind of industry, in war as in peace, in his pleasures as in his toils-has spread round and round the globe. The feathered tribes, too, exist in such abundance in these regions as to form in some countries a staple article of food.
Turning now to the vegetable kingdom, we find the corn- plants-the plants which are best adapted for the food of civilized man-scattered profusely over the Temperate Zone. It is only when man has settled down in a fixed abode, -when he has abandoned his nomadic life and become an agriculturist, attaching himself to a certain locality, -that it is possible for him to rear corn. Corn is not self-sustaining, self-diffusing, like the wild grass. Self-sown, it gradually dwindles away, and finally disappears. "It can only be reared permanently by being sown by man"s own hand, and in ground which man"s own hand has tilled." Corn, therefore, a great German botanist has said, precedes all civilization. With it are connected rest, peace, and domestic happiness, of which the wandering savage knows nothing. In order to rear it, nations must take possession of certain lands; and when their existence is thus firmly established, improvements in manners and customs speedily follow. They are no longer inclined for bloody wars, but fight only to defendthe fields from which they derive their support.
Corn is the food most convenient and most suitable for man in a social state. It is only by the careful cultivation of it that a country becomes capable of permanently supporting a dense population. All other kinds of food are precarious, and cannot be stored up for any length of time: roots and fruits are soon exhausted; the produce of the chase is uncertain, and if hard pressed ceases to yield a supply. In some countries the pith ofthe sago-palm,the fruit of the bread-fruit tree,the root of
the esculent fern, and similar food, supplied spontaneously by nature, serve to maintain a thinly scattered and easily satisfied population; but man in these rude circumstances is invariably found depraved in body and in mind, and hopelessly incapable of bettering his condition. But the cultivation of corn, while it furnishes him with a supply of food for the greater part of the year, imposes upon him certain labours and restraints which have a most beneficial influence upon his character and habits.
THE CORN FIELD
