Where food is to be found and how it is obtained has, it was seen, changed from age to age. First, it was only where nature brought it forth spontaneously; such products are called indigenous. In early times those foods were used that were found growing wherever food was needed. Only primi-tive life knew so simple a method of nourishing humanity. Food was then limited to what was growing and as it grew.

Later humanity ate what it could grow wherever it lived. Food was then limited to what could be produced at hand. Since only what would grow naturally was then available, barrenness or fertility of soil determined what diet would be.

As humanity passed into more peaceable living and found itself living more fully over the surface of the earth in all climes and growing into interworking communication, it learned what grew everywhere. It has brought what grows from where it grows best to where it can be most used. This has extended transportation of food, with consequent storage of it. Variety in diet has thus been increased; freshness of food has been greatly decreased. More persons have become engaged in handling food than in producing it. Food has thus entered into the realm of profit as well as nourishment of humanity.

Science, in its study of food and feeding, first looked at what happened with animals and tried to see what could be done further for them. Recently science has been investigating the food-needs and food-possibilities for humanity. How the conditions that produce fertility can be effected where barrenness prevails is increasingly studied. As this is understood, it is used to bring more abundant and more varied food from the earth wherever there is human life in need of it. Science-direction and human work can now usually produce variety in food at hand. It is thus that freshness of food is insured.