History has much to say about generals and battles. Its pages are filled with the deeds of emperors and kings, too seldom glorious. But the major factor in the growth of states and empires has been the origin and development of domesticated animals and cultivated plants. The United States has become a rich and powerful country, primarily because maize, the corn of the Indians, was so well adapted to the vast areas of tillable land that it laid the foundation of a prosperous agriculture. Canada developed an early maturing wheat, well fitted to northern soil and climate, and so opened a new domain for settlement. Ireland lost one and one-half million people by death and emigration when, for three successive years, the fungous disease Phytophthora ravaged the potato crop. After the discovery of a chemical spray that protected the plant from the fungus, the Irish prospered.

The plants and animals that nourish us, clothe us, and shelter us from the weather are so taken for granted that few stop to think how recently they became available. Only after long effort and many years of patient searching for useful plants and animals in every part of the world, only after their gradual improvement for man's best uses, did these products reach their present value in agriculture, commerce, and industry.

In "Ivanhoe" there is a banquet scene which gives a vivid picture of early days in twelfth century England.

The board groaned with pork and beef, with venison pasties and roasted fowl, and ale and mead flowed freely; but could we go back there, by some such miracle as Mark Twain invoked in placing a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's court, we should miss many things that are on our everyday bill of fare. At that time purple-skinned potatoes the size of marbles were being grown by the Indians in North and South America, but no one in other parts of the world had ever seen them. For thousands of years Europeans ate turnips, carrots, and beets or did without vegetables of this type. Peas and cabbages there were, but no knight in armor ever ate a tomato salad. Queen Guinevere never tasted corn on the cob. Even to-day few Englishmen know the delight of roasting ears. Can you imagine a Thanksgiving dinner without turkey, without cranberry sauce, and without pumpkin pie! No wonder Thanksgiving is a more recent institution.

In those olden times there was plenty of smoke from the oil-wick lamps and the open fireplaces but none of the fragrant aroma from after-dinner coffee and cigars. And we still call them"the good old days."

The ladies in our imaginary twelfth century excursion party, after they had ceased to wonder at the windows without glass, to say nothing about screens, and kitchens with neither stoves nor plumbing, would soon miss many of the beautiful flowers and shrubs that make the modern home attractive. There would be no sweet peas on the table or dahlias in the garden. Tulips and hyacinths and many of the other spring flowering bulbs would be noticeably absent. Wild roses would be there in abundance but no Pernet or Van Fleet creations. Lilacs, spiraeas and deutzias, if grown at all, would not be represented by the free-flowering and gloriously beautiful bushes of to-day.

Going into the orchard of our Saxon host we might find some apples and pears, perhaps half the size of a Delicious or a Bartlett, a few plums, cherries, and grapes; but the fruit lover would look in vain for peaches. Strawberries would be there, but only the little wild fruit that takes forever to pick. The grapes, too, though long cultivated in the Old World, would not be particularly fine in England. And even at their best the meaty, sweet European grapes do not have the flavor and juiciness of the native American grapes, so that many will agree with Longfellow in saying:

Very good in its way is the Verzenay or the Sillery, soft and creamy, But Catawba wine has a taste more divine, more dulcet, delicious and dreamy. There grows no vine, by the haunted Rhine, by the Danube or Quadalquiver, Nor island or cape, that bears such a grape as grows by the beautiful River.

America contributed much to Europe; but there was an even exchange. In fact, one may trace the westward course of empire more clearly by the conquest of the soil and by the introduction of new plants and animals than by military triumphs. Following the paths of Cortes, Pizarro, Balboa, and others who killed and robbed the natives, came the Spanish missionaries to tell the Indians about the blessing of Christian civilization. They rode their burros throughout Mexico and what is now Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. Here and there they built their monasteries and planted their grapevines, date palms, olive trees, orange groves, and alfalfa fields. These plant introductions did not thrive everywhere, but in many parts of the country they were the beginning of extensive and profitable industries.

While this development was taking place in the South and West, a similar pageant of colonization was taking place in the East and North. It began with a small sailing vessel that set out from Plymouth, England, stopping at Holland and landing on the Massachusetts shore in 1620. The passengers on the Mayflower are well known. What did they bring with them? Planning to make this new world their home, the Pilgrims did not come empty handed. Their ship was small, and no farm animals were brought on that first trip. But there were sacks of seed wheat and of barley; and packet upon packet of the seeds of other foodstuffs. In fact, practically the whole list of European garden vegetables came over with the early New England and Virginia settlers.