With this purpose in view, Agriculture is here considered, in PART Book I. As to its origin, progress, and $1. Among ancient and modern nations. present state, II. As a science founded on III. As an art comprehending IV. Statistically in Britain, 12 Under different geographical, physical, and political circumstances. 1. The study of the vegetable kingdom. 2. The study of the animal kingdom. 3. The study of the mineral kingdom and the atmosphere. 4. The study of the mechanical agents employed in agriculture. 5. The study of the operations of agriculture. 1. The valuation, purchase, and transfer of landed property. 2. The laying out, or general arrangement, of landed property. 3. The improvement of culturable lands. 4. The management of landed estates. 5. The selection, hiring, and stocking of farms. 6. The culture of farm lands. 7. The economy of live stock, and the dairy. As to its present state. 12. As to its future progress. A Calendarial Index to those parts of the work which treat of culture and management, points out the operations as they are to be performed, in the order of time and of season: and A General Index explains the technical terms of agriculture, the abbreviations here made use of, and presents an analysis of the whole work in alphabetical, as the Table of Contents does in systematic, order. PART I. AGRICULTURE CONSIDERED AS TO ITS ORIGIN, PROGRESS,' AND PRESENT STATE AMONG DIFFERENT NATIONS, GOVERNMENTS, AND CLIMATES. 1. The history of agriculture may be considered chronologically, or in connection with that of the different nations who have successively flourished in various parts of the world; politically, as influenced by the different forms of government which have prevailed; geographically, as affected by different climates; and physically, as influenced by the characters of the earth's surface. The first kind of history is useful, by displaying the relative situation of different countries as to agriculture; instructive, as enabling us to contrast our present situation with that of other nations and former times; and curious, as discovering the route by which agriculture has passed from primitive ages and countries to our own. The political and geographical histories of the art, derive their value from pointing out causes favourable and unfavourable to improvement, and countries and climates favourable or unfavourable to particular kinds of cultivation and management. BOOK I. HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE AMONG ANCIENT AND MODERN NATIONS. 2. Traditional history traces man back to the time of the deluge. After that catastrophe, of which the greater part of the earth's surface bears evidence, man seems to have recovered himself (in our hemisphere at least) in the central parts of Asia, and to have first attained to eminence in arts and government on the alluvial plains of the Nile. Egypt colonised Greece, Carthage, and some other places on the Mediterranean sea; and thus the Greeks received their arts from the Egyptians, afterwards the Romans from the Greeks, and finally the rest of Europe from the Romans. Such is the route by which agriculture is traced to our part of the world: how it may have reached the eastern countries of India and China is less certain; though, from the great antiquity of their inhabitants and governments, it appears highly probable that arts and civilisation were either coeval there, or, if not, that they travelled to the east much more rapidly than they did to the west. 3. The early history of man in America rests on very indistinct traditions: there arts and civilisation do not seem of such antiquity as in Asia; in North America they are of very recent introduction; but of the agriculture of either division of that continent, and of India and China, we shall attempt little more than some sketches of the modern history, and its present state. 4. The history of agriculture, among the nations of what may be called classic antiquity, is involved in impenetrable obscurity. Very few facts are recorded on the subject previously to the time of the Romans. That enterprising people considerably improved the art, and extended its practice with their conquests. After the fall of their empire, it declined throughout Europe; and, during the dark ages, was chiefly preserved on the estates of the church. With the general revival of arts and letters, which took place during the sixteenth century, agriculture also revived; first in Italy, and then in France and Germany; but it flourished most in Switzerland and Holland; and finally, in recent times, has attained its highest degree of perfection in Britain. The modern agriculture of America is copied from that of Europe; and the same may be said of the agriculture of European colonies established in different parts of the world. The agriculture of China, and the native agriculture of India, seem to have undergone no change for many ages. Such is the outline which we now proceed to fill up by details, and we shall adopt the usual division of time, into the ages of antiquity, the middle ages, and the modern times. CHAP. I. Of the History of Agriculture in the Ages of Antiquity; or from the Deluge to the Establishment of the Roman Empire, in the Century preceding the vulgar Era. 5. The world, as known to the ancients, consisted of not more than half of Asia, and of a small part of Africa and Europe. During the inundation of the deluge, a remnant of man, and of other animals, is related to have been saved on the top of the high mountain of Ararat, near the Caspian sea (fig. 1.), and, when the waters sub sided, to have descended and multiplied in the plains of Assyria. As they increased in numbers they are related to have separated, and, after an unknown length of time, to have formed several nations and governments. Of these the principal are those of the Assyrian empire, known as Babylonians, Assyrians, Medes, and Persians, in Asia; of the Jews and the Egyptians, chiefly in Africa; and of the Grecians, chiefly in Europe. Least is known of the nations which composed the Assyrian empire; of the Jews, more is known of their gardening and domestic economy, than of their field culture; the Egyptians may be considered the parent nation of arts and civilisation, and are supposed to have excelled in agriculture; and something is known of that art among the Greeks. 6. The authors whose writings relate to the period under consideration are few, and the relations of some of them very contradictory. The earliest is Moses, who flourished B. C. 1600; Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus, who wrote more particularly on the history and geography of Egypt, lived, the former in the fifth, and the latter in the sixth, century B. C.; and Hesiod, the ancient Greek writer on husbandry, in the tenth century preceding our æra. 7. Estimating the value of the writers of antiquity on these principles, they may be considered as reaching back to a period 1600 years before our æra, or nearly 3500 years from the present time; and it is truly remarkable, that, in the Eastern countries, the state of agriculture and other arts, and even of machinery, at that period, does not appear to have been materially different from what it is in the same countries at the present day. Property in land was recognised, the same grains cultivated, and the same domestic animals reared or employed: some led a wandering life and dwelt in tents like the Arabs; and others dwelt in towns or cities, and pursued agriculture and commerce like the fixed nations. It is reasonable indeed, and consistent with received opinions, that this should be the case; for, admitting the human race to have been nearly exterminated at the deluge, those who survived that catastrophe would possess the more useful arts, and general habits of life, of the antediluvian world. Noah, accordingly, is styled a husbandman, and is said to have cultivated the vine and to have made wine. In little more than three centuries afterwards, Abraham is stated to have had extensive flocks and herds, slaves of both sexes, silver and gold, and to have purchased a family sepulchre with a portion of territory around it. Isaac his son, during his residence in Palestine, is said to have sown and reaped a hundred fold. Corn seems to have been grown in abundance in Egypt; for Abraham, and afterwards Jacob, had recourse to that country during times of famine. Irrigation was also extensively practised there, for it is said (Gen., xiii. 10.) that the plain of Jordan was watered everywhere, even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt. Such is the amount of agricultural information contained in the writings of Moses, from which the general conclusion is, that agriculture, in the East, has been practised in all or most of its branches from time immemorial. The traditions of other countries, however, as recorded by various writers, ascribe its invention to certain fabulous personages; as the Egyptians to Osiris; the Greeks to Ceres and Triptolemus; the Latins to Janus; and the Chinese to Chin-hong, successor of Fo-hi. SECT. I. Of the Agriculture of Egypt. 8. The origin of agriculture has been sought by modern philosophers in natural circumstances. Man in his rudest state, they consider, would first live on fruits or roots, afterwards by hunting or fishing, next by the pasturage of animals, and lastly, to all of these he would add the raising of corn. Tillage, or the culture of the soil for this purpose, is supposed to have been first practised in imitation of the effects produced by the sand and mud left by the inundations of rivers. These take place more or less in every country, and their effects on the herbage which spontaneously springs up among the deposited sand and mud must at a very early period have excited the attention of the countryman. This hypothesis seems supported by the traditions and natural circumstances of Egypt, a country overflowed by a river, civilised from time immemorial, and so abundant in corn as to be called the granary of the adjoining states. Sir Isaac Newton and Stillingfleet, accordingly, considered that corn was first cultivated on the banks of the Nile. Sir Isaac fixes on Lower Egypt; but, as Herodotus and other ancient Greek writers assert that that country was once a marsh, and as Major Rennel in his work on the geography of Herodotus is of the same opinion, Stillingfleet (Works, vol. ii. 524.) considers it more probable that the cultivation of land was invented in Upper Egypt, and proceeded downwards according to the course of the Nile. 9. The situation and natural phenomena of Upper Egypt, Stillingfleet considers, rendered it fitter for the invention of cultivation than the low country; "for, while Lower Egypt was a marsh, formed by the depositions of the Nile, the principal part of Upper Egypt was a valley a few leagues broad, bounded by mountains, and on both sides declining to the river. Hence it was overflowed only for a certain time and season; the waters rapidly declined, and the ground, enriched by the mud, was soon dry, and in a state fit to receive seed. The process of cultivation in this country was also most obvious and natural; for the ground being every year covered with mud brought by the Nile, and plants springing up spontaneously after its recess, must have given the hint, that nothing more was necessary than to scatter the seeds, and they would vegetate. Secondly, the ground was prepared by nature for receiving the seed, and required only stirring sufficient to cover it. From this phenomenon the surrounding nations learned two things: first, that the ground before sowing should be prepared, and cleared from plants; and secondly, that the mixture of rich mould and sand would produce fertility. What is here stated may appear without foundation as to Upper Egypt; because at present, in the vicinity of Thebes, water is raised by art. But this objection is obviated by the testimony of Dr. Pococke, who is of opinion that formerly Upper Egypt was overflowed, in the same manner as Lower Egypt was afterwards, and is to this day." (Stilling fleet's Life and Works, ii. 524.) 2 10. The invention of agricultural implements must have been coeval with the invention of aration; and, accordingly, they are supposed to have originated in Egypt. Antiquarians are agreed, that the primeval implement used in cultivating the soil, must have been of the pick kind. (fig. 2.) medal of the greatest antiquity, dug up at Syracuse, contained an impression of such an instrument (Encyc. of Gard., fig. 77.): and its pro A : a b 3 gress till it became a plough has been recognised in a cameo, published by Menestrier, on which a pick-like plough is drawn by two serpents (fig. 3. a) it may be also seen on a medal from the village of Enna, in Sicily, published by Combe (b); in a figure given by Spon, as found on an antique tomb (c); in an Etruscan plough, copied from a fragment in the Roman college at Rome, by Lasteyrie (d); and as we still see in the instrument depicted by Niebuhr, as used for ploughing in Egypt and Arabia at the present day (e). What seems to confirm these conjectures is, that the image of Osiris is sculptured with a similar plough in each hand (fig. 4. a b c d), and with a harrow (e) suspended by a cord (f) over the left shoulder. This plough there can be little doubt was used in war as well d as in agriculture, and seems to have been of that kind with which the Israelites fought against their enemies the Philistines (1 Sam., xiii. 19. 23.): it is thought, by some, to be the archetype of the letter alpha (the hieralpha of Kircher); and, by others, the sounds necessary to conduct the processes of culture are thought to have founded the origin of language. Thus it is that agriculture is considered by some antiquarians, as not only the parent of all other arts, but also of language and literature. 11. Whether the culture of corn were invented in Egypt or not, all testimonies concur that cultivation was carried to a higher degree of perfection there than in any other country of antiquity. The canals and banks which still remain in Lower Egypt, and especially in the Delta, are evidences of the extent to which embanking, irrigation, and drainage have been carried. These works are said to have been greatly increased by Sesostris, in the 17th or 18th century B. C. Many of the canals and drains have been long obliterated; but there are still reckoned eighty canals, like rivers, all excavated by manual labour, several of which are twenty, thirty, and forty leagues in length. These receive the inundations of the Nile, and circulate the waters through the country, which The large lakes of Moris, Behire, and Mareotis, before was wholly overflown by them. formed vast reservoirs for containing the superfluous waters, from which they were conducted by the canals over the adjacent plains. Upon the elevated ridges, and even on the sides of the hills which form the boundary to the flat alluvial grounds, the water was raised by wheels turned by oxen; and by a succession of wheels, and gradations of aqueducts, it is said, some hills, and even mountains, were watered to their summits. towns at some distance from the Nile were surrounded with reservoirs for the supply of the inhabitants, and for watering the gardens. For this last purpose the water was raised in a very simple manner, by a man walking on a plank with raised edges, or on a bamboo or other tube, which, it is observed in Calmet's Bible, is the machine alluded to by Moses, when he speaks of sowing the seed and watering it "with the foot." (Deut., xi. 10.) They also All the raised water by swinging it up in baskets (fig. 5.); a mode which, like the others, remains in use at the present day. The water is lifted in a basket lined with leather. "Two men, holding the basket between them, by a cord in each end fastened to the edge of it, lower it into the Nile, and then swing it between them, till it acquires a velocity sufficient to enable them to throw the water over a bank into a canal. They work stark naked, or, if in summer, only with a slight blue cotton shirt or belt." (Clarke's Travels.) 12. Of these immense embankments, some of which served to keep in the river, and others to oppose the torrents of sand which occasionally were blown from the Great Desert, and which threatened to cover the country as effectually as the waters of the Nile, the ruins still remain. But, in spite of these remains, the sand is accumulating, and the limits of cultivated Egypt have been annually decreasing for the last 1200 years; the barbarous nations, to which the banks of the Nile have been subject during this period, having paid no attention to cultivation, or to the preservation of these noble works of antiquity. 13. Landed property, in ancient Egypt, it would appear, was the absolute right of the owners, till by the procurement of Joseph, in the eighteenth century B. C., the paramount or allodial property of the whole was transferred to the government. The king, however, made no other use of that right, than to place the former occupiers in the situation of tenants in capite; bound to pay a rent or land-tax of one fifth of the produce. This, Moses says, continued to be the law of Egypt down to his time; and the same thing is confirmed by the testimony of Herodotus and Strabo. 14. The soil of Egypt is compared by Pliny to that of the Leontines, formerly regarded as the most fertile in Sicily. There, he says, corn yields a hundred for one; but Cicero, as Gouguet observes, has proved this to be an exaggeration, and that the ordinary increase in that part of Sicily is eight for one. Granger (Relat. du Voy. fait. en Egypte, 1730.), who paid much attention to this subject, says that the lands nearest to the Nile, which during the inundation were covered with water forty days, did not, in the most favourable seasons, yield more than ten for one; and that those lands which the water covered only five days, seldom gave more than four for one. This, however, is probably owing to their present neglected state. 6 15. Of the animal or vegetable products of Egyptian agriculture very little is known. The ox seems to have been the chief animal of labour from the earliest period; and rice at all times the principal grain in cultivation. By a painting discovered in the ancient Elethia (fig. 6.), it would appear that the operation of reaping was performed much in the same way as at present, the ears being cropped by a hook, and the principal part of the straw left as stubble. Herodotus mentions that, in his time, wheat was not cultivated, and that the bread made from it was despised, and reckoned not fit to be eaten ; beans were also held in abhorrence by the ancient inhabitants: but it is highly probable, that in latter times, when they began to have commerce with other nations, they laid aside these and other prejudices, and cultivated what they found best suited to the foreign market. 16. Agriculture was, no doubt, the chief occupation of the Egyptians: and though they are said to have held the profession of shepherd in abhorrence, yet it appears that Pharaoh not only had considerable flocks and herds in his own possession, but was desirous of introducing any improvement which might be made in their management; for when Jacob, in answer to his questions, told him that he and his family had been brought up to the care of live stock from their youth, he expressed a wish to Joseph to have a Jewish bailiff for the superintendence of his grazing farm: "If thou knowest any men of activity among them, then make them rulers over my cattle." (Gen., xlvii. 6.) SECT. II. Of the Agriculture of the Jews, and other Nations of Antiquity. 17. Of the agriculture of the nations contemporary with the Egyptians and Greeks nothing is distinctly known; but, assuming it as most probable that agriculture was first brought into notice in Egypt, it may be concluded that most other countries, as well as Greece, would begin by imitating the practices of that country. 18. On the agriculture of the Jews, we find there are various incidental remarks in the books of the Old Testament. On the conquest of Canaan, it appears that the different tribes had their territory assigned them by lot; that it was equally divided among the heads of families, and by them and their posterity held by absolute right and impartial succession. Thus every family had originally the same extent of territory; but, as it became customary afterwards to borrow money on its security, and as some families became indolent and were obliged to sell, and others extinct by death without issue, landed estates soon varied in point of extent. In the time of Nehemiah a famine occurred, on which account many had "mortgaged their lands, their vineyards, and houses, that they might buy corn for their sons and daughters; and to enable them to pay the king's tribute." (Nehem., v. 2.) Some were unable to redeem their lands otherwise than by selling their children as slaves, and thereby "bringing the sons and daugh |