Note 33 — Chapter I · METHOD AND DIVISIONS.

Perusing the ethnographical literature, we found such great differences between the several savage tribes in this respect, that we have thought it best to distinguish three stages of agriculture33. The principle according to which the distinction will be made is, as we have already hinted, the extent to which a tribe depends upon agriculture for its subsistence. The first agricultural group will contain those cases, in which agriculture holds a subordinate place, most of the subsistence being derived from other sources, viz. hunting, fishing or gathering wild-growing vegetable food34. The tribes of the second group carry on agriculture to a considerable extent, but not to the exclusion of hunting, etc. The third, or highest, agricultural stage is reached, when agriculture is by far the principal mode of subsistence, and hunting, etc. hold a very subordinate place, so much so that, if the latter were entirely wanting, the economic state would be nearly the same.