e the chemical phenomena going on in living
matter; both of them know how at a given moment to prevent the
transformation from going further. Neither of them for the rest take
into account the part played by diastasis and ferments. The ancestors
of one as of the other have by chance found out the method, and they
transmit it from generation to generation.[57]

[57] J. Treherne Moggridge, _Harvesting Ants and Trap-Door
Spiders_, London, 1873, pp. 16-60.

_Agricultural Ants._--The art of amassing stores is still more highly
perfected by an Ant which inhabits North America. It is called the
_Pogonomyrmex barbatus_, or, on account of its customs, the
Agricultural Ant. It carries out a certain number of preparatory acts,
and pushes foresight further than any other animal, since it looks
after its property while still growing. It is grain which these
insects collect, but only a single species of graminaceous grain. This
choice leads them to spend great trouble on their preferred plant.
They act in such a way that in the case of men we should say, purely
and simply, that they were cultivating. The art of treating the earth
with a view of augmenting the products which it yields is certainly of
all the manifestations of human activity that which we should least
expect to find among animals. It is, however, impossible otherwise to
describe the conduct of Agricultural Ants. The field which they
prepare is found in front of their ant-hill; it is a terrace in extent
about a square metre or more; there they will allow no other plant to
grow but that from which they propose to gather fruit. This latter
(_Aristida stricta_) is rather like a grain of oats, and in taste
resembles rice; in America it is called ant rice. This culture
represents for these insects a much more important property than a
wheat field for man. It is, in relation to their size, a forest
planted with great trees, in comparison with which baobabs and
sequoias are dwarfs. It is not known if the _Pogonomyrmex_ sow their
rice; Lincecum asserted that the ants actually sow the seeds, that he
had seen the process going on year after year; "there can be no
doubt," he concludes, "of the fact that this particular species of
grass is intentionally planted, and in farmer-like manner carefully
divested of all other grasses and weeds during the time of its
growth."[58] McCook is not able to accept this unqualified conclusion.
"I do not believe that the ants delibera