Ditch digging, the most important of all human activity

Ditch digging has done more good for the human race than any other human activity.

That one sentence should get me into the history books, if I were the first to express the idea. I abhor the idea of the wheel as the great invention. Yes, as inventions go, the wheel is a great labor saving device, perhaps even a labor multiplying device. Yet, it has done less than the humble ditch of proper width and depth.

Given the proper width and depth, a ditch can irrigate a field, protect an army in a castle, provide water transportation like the Wabash and Erie Canal.

But, those things miss the prime reason for inventing the ditch.

Sanitation.

In one form or another, even today, we use a ditch to carry unsanitary waste, and disease, away from our ... cities.

Had we not invented the ditch and ditch digging, we would still carry our humble belonging from temporary resting place to temporary resting place. Perhaps during a resting cycle, the wheel would have been invented to save the labor of carrying our 'stuff.' (See George Carlin for a full discussion of our stuff)

Beware those who belittle the mighty Ditch Digger. Without 'him', we would have nothing but what we could carry on our backs.