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advancement in agriculture. Agriculture is the parent of civilization. 

 This is well illustrated by ancient Greece. In the height of her glory 

 Greece had attained great perfection in agriculture; a position greatly 

 superior to that she possesses at the present time; a perfection from which 

 our farmer of to-day can get many valuable hints. 



Notwithstanding the fact that the leading minds of Greece took no pride 

 in agriculture, and that art was carried on among them by a menial and 

 servile race; yet, as agriculture advanced, so advanced the Greek people 

 in everything that tended to make them great. 



The study of this fact, not only so far as the same relates to ancient 

 Greece, but to every other nation, is exceedingly interesting. In no in- 

 stance that has come within my researches, has the elements of national 

 greatness and power ever preceded the advance of agriculture, but has 

 always followed it. And this will be found to hold good, even among 

 nations that are said to have attained greatness by military prowess and 

 power. 



Perhaps the assertion that the enlightenment, power, and intelligence of 

 a people are proportionate with their advancement in agriculture is best 

 illustrated by the ancient Jews, who, under the most admirable laws of 

 Moses, carried agriculture to great perfection, and hence became the most 

 intelligent and powerful nation of their age; or by the Romans, who were 

 greatly devoted to agriculture. They copied much after the laws of Moses, 

 so far as the same related to agriculture, and, as is well known to nearly 

 every farmer, encouraged and extolled those who wrote upon agriculture, 

 until she had a literature upon that subject unsurpassed by that of any 

 other nation. And encouraged her greatest men to cultivate the soil, for 

 you will remember it became a Roman adage, that " the earth took delight 

 in being tilled by the hands of men crowned with laurels and decorated 

 with triumphal honors." 



The farm of the early Roman was small — about six acres — afterwards 

 increased to about forty-three acres. 



Up to this time agriculture was exceedingly prosperous in Rome; and I 

 believe it will be conceded that during the period of the forty-three acre 

 farms, Rome was most powerful and prosperous. Later the farm was 

 increased to about four hundred and thirty acres. This was too much, and 

 soon thereafter Rome began to decline. Four hundred and thirty acres 

 was too large a farm to be cultivated by one man or family, and experience 

 soon taught the Romans that important fact, and one of the agricultural 

 maxims of Rome was: " The farmer may praise large estates, but let him 

 cultivate a small one." 



But the farm had been fixed at about four hundred and thirty acres, and 

 notwithstanding every day demonstrated that Rome was retrograding under 

 this system of large farms, the Roman farmer, true to human nature, found 

 everywhere, and at all times, being possessed of this big farm, was reluc- 

 tant to let any portion of it go, and Rome continued to decline. I believe 

 it can be successfully maintained that this large farm system, and the 

 practice later on, of combining several of these large farms into one by 

 marriage, purchase, and other means, together with the better class ceas- 

 ing to till with their own hands, and leaving that to be done by slaves, 

 had more to do with the destruction of the Roman Empire than all other 

 causes combined, except the one great and fatal mistake of that great 

 people — the extension of the right of the elective franchise to a numerous class 

 unfitted to exercise that important sovereign 'privilege. 



With the downfall of the Roman Empire, in the fifth century of the Chris- 

 tian era, came the long night and darkness of the Middle Ages. Agricult- 



