plant, will not grow of themselves. People must plow the ground for them, plant the seed, reap the grain when it is ripe, cut the flax, and pick the cotton.
Raising corn, or wheat, or other plants for food or clothing is called agriculture or farming.
We do not like to eat dry bread. So some people keep cows and make butter and cheese for the rest. Those who do so are occupied in dairying.
Then, too, we all eat meat. So some people must keep the animals whose flesh we eat. Those animals are called stock, and the business of those who keep them is called stock-raising.
Milking. A dairy in Westchester County, N. Y. Notice the heads of the cows that live upstairs.
Farmers use plows to turn up the soil, and machines to cut their wheat. We all use knives and scissors, needles and pins, and other such things.
People who make the things that other people use are said to manufacture.
But of course the man who makes plows must have iron and wood of which to make them; the man who builds wooden houses must have wood. Where shall they get the iron and the wood?
Iron is a mineral. It is dug from the earth. Some one must dig it up and make it fit for the plow-maker to use. The occupation of digging minerals out of the earth is called mining.
Wood is obtained from oaks and pines and other trees. The occupation of cutting down the trees and sawing them up to be made into houses, or ships, or other things, is called lumbering.
Lumbering. View in Georgia. Railways are used on the coastal plain.
When a boy wants some marbles, he goes to a store and buys them. When a farmer wants a plow, he goes to a store and buys it. If in one country the people have not enough wheat, they buy some from a country where the people have more than enough. If in one country more cotton grows than the people want, they send it to other countries where cotton does not grow. The business of exchanging goods is called commerce.
Often things have to be carried a long way before they reach the persons who want them. The tea or coffee that we use had to travel many thousand miles before it reached us.
This is why we have so many ships and steamers going to all parts of the world. They carry away things that grow or are made here. This we call exporting. They bring to us things that grow or are made in other countries. This we call importing.
Ships from South America unloading at a wharf in New York.
For Recitation.—What are the chief occupations of men? What is agriculture? What is stock-raising? What is in manufacturing? What is mining? What is commerce?
