r social
intercourse are shown.

But the most important event in this stage of evolution was the
subjection of the plant world to man. For ages of interminable length
this was not thought of. Fruits and other vegetable products formed
part of man's food; but these were the growth of wild nature, and the
plant world was left to its own will, with no effort to bring it under
human control. There is nothing to show that the idea of agriculture
ever entered the mind of a Pygmy. Of the plants surrounding him, far the
greater number were useless for food, only the few were available; but
the conception of favoring the few at the expense of the many apparently
never occurred to him. There is, indeed, some crude and simple
agriculture pursued by a few of the Negritos of Luzon, but evidently as
an imitation of the Malay agriculture or as a result of direct teaching,
certainly not as an original conception. The conflict of the Pygmies
with nature has been confined to the animal world, and reached its
highest level in the herding industries of the Hottentots.

Where and when the subjugation of the plant world began it is impossible
to say. It very probably had its origin in the fertile open lands of the
tropics. But that it originated in the central region of Africa, or that
the agriculturists of that region were of native origin, are both
subjects open to question. The forest folk may have spread into the open
country, there developed a crude agriculture, favored the growth of food
plants at the expense of useless shrubs and trees, and gradually
advanced in this new form of industry. This would be in accordance with
the opinion of Virchow, who looks upon the negro as the descendant of
the Pygmy. No great change was necessary to convert the one into the
other. The Pygmy is negro-like in cast of countenance and bodily
formation. He differs in size, in complexion, and in shape of head. But
new conditions may have given rise to these differences. The fierce suns
of the African lowlands may well have caused an increased deposit of
pigment, changing the yellowish hue of the Pygmy to the deep black of
the negro. An increase in size is a natural result when exertion
diminishes and food increases. And a tendency for the head to change
from the short to the long shape is shown in the Bushmen.

On the other hand, certain anthropologists, of whom we may name
Quatrefages, take an opposite view, and believe that the negroes
migrated from As