"He gave a portion of wheat," says Marsden, "to six chiefs, and also to
some of his own common men, and directed them all how to sow it,
reserving some for himself and his uncle Shungie, who is a very great
chief, his dominion extending from the east to the west side of New
Zealand.

"All the persons to whom Duaterra had given the seed-wheat put it into
the ground, and it grew well; but before it was well ripe, many of them
grew impatient for the produce; and as they expected to find the grain
at the roots of the stems, similar to their potatoes, they examined the
roots, and finding there was no wheat under the ground, they pulled it
all up, and burned it, except Shungie.

"The chiefs ridiculed Duaterra much about the wheat, and told him,
because he had been a great traveller, he thought he could easily impose
upon their credulity by fine stories; and all he urged could not
convince them that wheat would make bread. His own and Shungie's crops
in time came to perfection, and were reaped and threshed; and though the
natives were much astonished to find that the grain was produced at the
top, and not at the bottom of the stem, yet they could not be persuaded
that bread could be made of it."

Marsden afterwards sent Duaterra a steel mill to grind his wheat, which
he received with no little joy. "He soon set to work," continues
Marsden, "and ground some wheat before his countrymen, who danced and
shouted for joy when they saw the meal. He told me that he made a cake
and baked it in a frying-pan, and gave it to the people to eat, which
fully satisfied them of the truth he had told them before, that wheat
would make bread." The chiefs now begged some more seed, which they
sowed; and such of it as was attended to grew up as strong a crop as
could be desired.

In all countries the securing of a sufficient supply of food is the
primary concern of society; and, accordingly, even among the rudest
tribes who are in any degree dependent upon the fruits of the earth for
their sustenance, the different operations of agriculture, as regulated
by the seasons, have always excited especial interest. Theoretical
writers are fond of talking of the natural progress of the species to
the agricultural state, from and through the pastoral, as if the one
were a condition at which it was nothing less than impossible for a
people to arrive, except by first undergoing the other.

In countries circumstanced like New Zealand, at least, the cour