THE RISE OF AGRICULTURE. 69 



improvement was the act of somebody who refused to be 

 contented with things as they were, and who studied to find 

 something new and better. How long mankind delved with 

 sharp sticks, we know not. At any rate, the day came, the 

 day when a grand genius was born. He gave his mind to the 

 study of sharp sticks ; and at last (perhaps when he was gray- 

 haired) hit on this discovery : that if you held a sharp stick 

 upright and fastened it to a horizontal blunt stick, you could 

 drag the sharp upright by the blunt horizontal, and thus 

 scratch the ground — in fact, you could plough. There are 

 nations, like the Persians, who have never ceased to gaze 

 with awe on this invention, and who still use it. Others 

 there are, who have improved it until they have reached 

 steam-ploughs and gang-ploughs. Let us side with the latter 

 nations, and never say of any tool, it is good enough. Let 

 us encourage all sorts of research ; but especially that of 

 highly educated men, for of them is our best hope. Good 

 examples are not far to seek. Look at Germany. Perhaps 

 somebody will object to looking at Germany, on the plea that 

 it is the land of privileged classes and of military rule. True ; 

 but remember, we are talking of crops, and not of nobles and 

 soldiers. A man may have a bad temper, and yet raise 

 excellent strino:-beans. We do not scoru to drink tea because 

 there is a Tai-ping rebellion in China. Therefore, we look 

 into Germany, and, after getting through the stratum of 

 nobles and soldiers (who, it may be said in parenthesis, 

 have thoroughly studied their trade of killing and have brought 

 it to the fine point of perfection) , we shall find a people who 

 have perhaps more knowledge than all the rest of the world 

 together. Not that they are a fine-grained or a well-to-do 

 people ; on the contrary, one is struck by a certain coarseness, 

 and by a general lack of means : but in knowledge and 

 research, they are to-day the world's leaders. Their govern- 

 ments are well known as exceptionally thrifty and economical, 

 insomuch that when a man is said to " work for the king of 

 Prussia," it means that he works for nothing. If, then, these 

 governments support certain establishments, we may be sure 

 they expect much advantage from them. And now look at their 

 establishments for the study of agriculture. The last statistics 

 tell us that Prussia proper has ninety colleges, academies 



