THE FATHERS OP MODERN AGRICULTURE. 33 



THE FATHERS OF MODERN AGRICULTURE. 



Until the commencement of the present century there 

 Was but little systematic cultivation in America. The for 

 ward movement was, undoubtedly, commenced by Washing 

 ton (as good and conscientious a farmer as he was a states 

 man) and by Thomas Jefferson, whose scientific investiga 

 tions into mechanics led him to make the first really valu 

 able improvement in plows. 



Great Britain is more indebted to Lord Bacon, undoubt 

 edly, than to any of his contemporaries for the impetus 

 which agriculture received in his day. This great philoso 

 pher taught men the inductive method to inquire into and 

 to discover by experiment, step by step, through the great 

 alphabet of nature soils, gases, elements, etc. the true re 

 lation which each bears to each. 



If all the votaries of agriculture had followed this great 

 man s teachings we should have heard less of that myth the 

 &quot; Science of Agriculture.&quot; It might more truly be called 

 the sum of all sciences, since, though it is made up of some 

 thing of all sciences, nevertheless, it will never, in the na 

 ture of things, become in itself a true science. 



Early in the eighteenth century Jethro Tull, one of the 

 earliest and one of the best writers on agriculture that 

 England ever had, did much, through the record of his 

 experiments in new and improved modes of culture, to ad 

 vance the customary system of tillage, and to reduce it to 

 rule. Tull was the father of drill husbandry, and the in 

 ventor of the horse-hoe. He also invented, but failed to 

 perfect, the threshing-machine, leaving the final triumph in 

 this direction for American genius to achieve, more than a 

 century later. 



Arthur Young is also justly celebrated for his labors in 

 behalf of agriculture. He traveled extensively over Europe, 



