THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



The three brothers of the seventh generation from 

 Adam — viz., Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal-Cain — made 

 certain great class improvements, which clearly- 

 intimate that one was a syatematic stock feeder, 

 and another a maker of agricultural implements. 

 And Lamech, when Noah was born to him, said, 

 " This same shall comfort us concerning our work 

 and toil of our hands, because of the ground 

 which the Lord hath cursed," thus showing that 

 Noah was engaged in the culture of the soil. 

 Agriculture was, however, not much engaged in 

 until after the Deluge, when it formed the jjrincipal 

 occupation of Noah and his descendants. Noah 

 took into the ark with him a large knowledge of 

 husbandry; and the practices of his family round 

 the skirts of Ararat were repeated on the Eu- 

 phrates, and taught throughout all the countries 

 of the dispersion. Abraham, also, belonged to a 

 wealthy pastoral family, and we read of his large 

 possessions of (locks and herds ; of his son Isaac 

 sowing in the land of Gerar, and receiving in the 

 same year an hundred fold. The wily Jacob, as he 

 has been often called, was also much engaged in 

 the cares and duties of pastoral hfe, and exhibited 

 no ordinary knowledge of his calling; for we all 

 know by what cunning device he obtained pos- 

 session of a large shave of the flock of his father- 

 in-law, no doubt thinking, as many do now-a-days, 

 that the rich old Laban ought willinglv to have 

 given him a dowry with his daughters. From 

 that incomparable narrative, the history of Joseph, 

 we learn that all the children of Jacob, from their 

 own words to Pharaoh, that their trade had been 

 about cattle from their youth, had desired, when they 

 came into Egypt, that they might settle in the low- 

 lying lands of Goshen, as producing the best pas- 

 tures for their flocks — displaying no mean judgment 

 in the quality of the soil; and, when they had 

 Pharaoh's permission to locate in this spot, he 

 said to Joseph, " If thou knowest any men of ac- 

 tivity amongst them, then make them rulers over 

 my cattle." And that great man who was raised 

 up by God to deliver his people out of the hand of 

 the Egyptians, Moses, also attended for forty 

 years the flocks of Jethro, his father-in-law. Al- 

 though the farmers of the present day have been 

 called a grumbling, growling, discontented lot, yet 

 it is a comfort to us, as a class, to know that there 

 was one, and only one man, so renowned for his 

 patience, that it has passed into a proverb, and 

 that man was a very large farmer; for we read 

 that the honest, upright, and patient Job, the 

 greatest man of the East, had 14,000 sheep, G,000 

 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 she asses. 

 There were other large farmers. Ehjah found 

 Elisha, the son of Shaphat, plougliing with 

 twelve yoke of oxen, himself being with the 

 twelfth yoke, plainly showing he was not above 

 his business, and setting an example worthy of 

 being more followed by the farmers' sons of 

 the present day. The noble king David, who 

 in his youth was a shepherd boy, no doubt was 

 a skilful husbandman, and saw that his estate 

 was well managed, for we read that on liis royal 

 farm he had eleven overseers. The estates, too, were 

 large in those days, both of the kings and their 

 subjects ; for we find that Uzziah, king of Judah, 1 



" had much, both in the low countries and in the 

 plains, husbandmen also, and vine-dressers, on 

 the mountains, and in Carmel, for he loved hus- 

 bandry." I need not further multiply instances 

 that agriculture was the chief employment of these 

 ancient worthies, and we have proof that they 

 excelled in the art. Their implements were light, 

 simple, and rude, yet they were most efficient for the 

 powdery and thirsty soil of Palestine ; and a sure 

 evidence of the goodness of their farm practices 

 exists in the abundance of their harvests — no peo- 

 ple can be said to have farmed ill, who for years 

 and centuries in succession reaped from thirty to 

 a hundred fold. 



Having thus briefly reviewed the Bible history 

 of agriculture, I will now proceed to speak of 

 it as practised by the Greeks and Romans. The 

 Greeks considered it a most important and be- 

 neficial art, and paid the greatest attention to 

 its practice; and there was probably not a 

 leader among them who did not assist, with his 

 own hands, in farming operations. Hesiod is 

 the earliest writer who gives us any detail of their 

 management; and from his writings it may be in- 

 ferred thathe understoodhis subject, for he observes 

 that fallowing or frequent ploughing in spring or 

 summer is of great advantage; and he advises the 

 farmer to be provided with a spare plough, that no ac- 

 cident may interrupt the operation— a piece of advice 

 that our plough makers would not object to see more 

 carried out in the present day. He also directs 

 the ploughman to attend to his employment, to 

 trace the furrows carefully in straight lines, not 

 looking around him, having his mind intent upon 

 what he is doing. Xenophon, who lived three 

 hundred and fifty-nine years B.C., was, however, 

 their great agricultural writer, and in his "Essay" 

 the following interesting narrative occurs : In his 

 time the Greek landed proprietor no longer 

 laboured upon his farm, but had a steward as a 

 general superintendent, and numerous labourers ; 

 yet he always advises the master to attend to his 

 own affairs. "My servant," he says, "leads my 

 horse into the fields, and I walk thither for the 

 sake of exercise ; and when arrived where ray 

 workmen are planting trees, tilling the ground, 

 and the like, I observe how everything is performed, 

 and study whether any of these operations may 

 be improved." After his ride, his servant took his 

 horse, and led him home, " taking with him," he 

 adds, "to my house such things as are wanted; 

 and I walk home, wash my hands, and dine oft' 

 whatever is prejiared for me, moderately." And 

 again, he observes, like a keen, sensible man as 

 he was— and I would have you remark it, those 

 of you who think any man can be a farmer — 

 he says, " No man can be one, till he is taught by 

 cxpevience; observation and instruction may do 

 much, but practice teaches many particulars which 

 no master would ever have thought to remark 

 upon. Also, before we commence the cultivation 

 of the soil, we should notice what crops best 

 flourish upon it, and we may even learn from the 

 weeds it produces what it will best support." 

 This good man would have shone, had he lived at 

 thi.s time, and set a noble example, not only to 

 farmers, Init to the class to which he belonged, 



