of civilization. If we are to assemble all the forces and agencies
that make for the final conquest of the planet, we must assuredly
know how it is that all the peoples in all the places have met the
problem of producing their sustenance out of the soil.
We have had few great agricultural travelers and few books that
describe the real and significant rural conditions. Of natural
history travel we have had very much; and of accounts of sights and
events perhaps we have had too many. There are, to be sure, famous
books of study and travel in rural regions, and some of them, as
Arthur Young's "Travels in France," have touched social and
political history; but for the most part, authorship of agricultural
travel is yet undeveloped. The spirit of scientific inquiry must now
be taken into this field, and all earth-conquest must be compared
and the results be given to the people that work.
This was the point of view in which I read Professor King's
manuscript. It is the writing of a well-trained observer who went
forth not to find diversion or to depict scenery and common wonders,
but to study the actual conditions of life of agricultural peoples.