State Agricultural Society. 97 



The savage nomad is pitted against the settler, for the growth of set- 

 tlement means the decadence and extermination of noniadism. The 

 breeding and rearing of domestic animals came first. It was Cain, 

 the elder brother, who was a tender of herds. Abel, the younger, 

 was a tiller of the ground. Land was primitively only valued as it 

 served to keep herds, and as soon as this section of country became 

 dry or was nibbled bare, a migration of family and flocks took jdace 

 lo the next greeii spot. So it went on with our wandering progeni- 

 tors — a restless, unsettled life, a never-ending setting up and folding 

 of tents, a careless, bright, gypsy-like life that developed a hardy, 

 free, half-predatory race, and which brought them in no way nearer 

 civilization. Between the Bedouin of Anno Domini eighteen hun- 

 dred and seventy-eight and Father Abraham of Aute-Christum two 

 thousand there is no difference. 



In the process of time, however, some son of Adam, more observ- 

 ant or more stable than his brethren, noticed that the banks of 

 certain rivers — tlie Nile, perchance, among them — after the overflow 

 had subsided, became green with the sprouts from grain and nut 

 brought down from the uj)lands by the river. Observation led to 

 imitation. The crop w%as found to be insufficient and insecure, so 

 himself gathering a store of seeds, he bided until the ebb took place, 

 and then wading in the receding tide, "cast his bread upon the 

 waters," which left it upon the soft soil beneath, and where it grew 

 and appeared "after many days." This was tilling in its infancy. 

 It might have been some descendant of this very man who, seeing 

 that the precarious produce of these overflowed lands was insufficient 

 to meet the wants of a rapidly increasing population, set his wits to 

 work, and decided to see what the dropping of seed into broken 

 ground would result in. But how to break the ground? To scratch 

 a long line would be the simplest way. So a pronged stick was used, 

 until some happy individual hit upon the idea of using a larger fork, 

 and pressing brute force into the service. The forked top of the 

 nearest tree was cut off; one branch, five or six feet long, was left for 

 the beam; the other, two feet long, was used for the share; a couple 

 of oxen were attached to thongs, and this was the first plow — the 

 same plow that is used in this very year of grace in Asia, Africa, and 

 in some parts of S})ain and Portugal. We English speaking people 

 have not much to boast of either, for it was not until the eighteenth 

 century that one Jethro Tull persuaded British farmers to use iron 

 in plows. 



There were but few, however, who became agriculturists, because 

 there were but few who preferred quiet, steady labor in the helds to 

 an untrammeled, migratory life. So, with a very strong appreciation 

 of the good things the earth could afford, but with a still stronger 

 disinclination to work for them, they impressed the captive into ser- 

 vice, and became task-masters and slave owners. Under this condi- 

 tion of affairs, it was not sur])rising that agriculture made no progress 

 from the time of Moses and Homer to that of the Crusades. When 

 I say agriculture, I mean husbandry as old Lysander knew it, who 



"Asked if in liusbandry he aught did know 

 To plow, to plant, to reap, to sow." 



In the care of herds and breeding of stock, the ancients were more 

 nearly on a par with us, but " blood " was not esteemed. I sliould 



13 



