agriculture. That it was carried to a very high decree 

 of excellence in Egypt, we learn from history, both 

 sacred and profane. That it was well-known and practiced 

 in India is attested by her wonderful system of irriga- 

 tion, yet extant, and unequalled in extent in any other 

 portion of the globe. 



The most ancient writings of the Chinese, old as they 

 are asserted to be, fail to give us an idea of the remote 

 antiquity of their successful agriculture. We read in 

 the Old Testament of the corn and the threshing floors, 

 the vineyards and the wine presses, the flocks and the 

 herds, nay, of the cattle upon a thousand hills of the 

 Hebrew people. 



We find in our libraries Greek and Roman works on 

 agriculture, written before the Christian era, and from 

 which instruction may be derived by the most enlight- 

 ened and skilfull farmer of to-day. What should be the 

 size of a farm ; what its proportions of arable, pasture, 

 meadow and woodland ; what crops and manures are best 

 suited to different soils ; what advantages are derived 

 from open and underground drainage ; when should irri- 

 gation be practiced, and what are its results ; what are 

 the benefits derived from land lying fallow ; from deep 

 and frequent plowings ; from a rotation of crops : from 

 turning under green grasses ; from burning the stubble ; 

 are questions, among many, discussed in these works, 

 and which are subjects of yet more elaborate discussion 

 after a lapse of more than two thousand years. Nor was 

 stock breeding and the care and preservation of stock 

 overlooked, and when we read of raising pigeons, not for 

 their flesh merely, but for the very superior manure they 

 furnished, and when we learn how carefully this man- 

 ure was pulverized, prepared for use by an admixture 

 with earths, and then skillfully and without waste ap- 

 plied, the modern word " guano " almost involuntarily 

 comes to our lips, and we think of the wonders it has 



