AGRICULTURE : 

 ITS SCIENCE AND PRACTICE, 



WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO CANADA. 



Agriculture of the 



T would be interesting to know how the nations of antiquity 

 tilled, and sowed, and reaped ; what crops they cultivated, 

 and by what method they converted them into food and rai- 

 ment. Records are meagre. 



Every reader of the Bible is familiar with its frequent 

 references to Egypt as a land so rich in grain, that it not 

 only produced abundance for its own dense population, but 

 yielded supplies for exportation to neighbouring countries. 

 Profane history corroborates these statements. Diodorus 

 ilus bears explicit testimony to the skill of the farmers of an- 

 ei -nt K'-rypt. He informs us that they were acquainted with the benefit^ 

 of a rotation of crops, and were skilful in adapting these to the soil and to 

 the seasons. The ordinary annual supply of grain furnished to Rome has 

 been estimated at 20,000,000 of bushels. From the same author, we also 

 learn, that tlx-y f.-d their cattle with hay during the annual inundation, 

 ;ni'l at other times tethered them in the meadows on given elover, Their 

 flocks were shorn twice annually (a practice common in several Asiatic 

 , and their ewe* yeaned twice A year. For religious as well as 

 economical reasons, they were great rearers of poultry, and practised arti- 

 ; ! hatching, as at the present day. The abundance or scarcity of the 

 harvests in Kgypt depended chiefly upon the height of the annual inun- 

 dation. If t<><, low, much of the land could not be sown, and scarcity or 



