EGYPTIAN AGRICULTURE AND HORTICULTURE. 27 



seed, unfit for bread, and the wild rice, though productive, is 

 black and coarse compared with its cultivated kindred. The 

 notable proportion of flesh-producing material contained in 

 wheat represents to us the flesh and blood of thousands of 

 generations who have persisted in bringing it to its present 

 perfection. 



As with wheat and rice, so all the varied products of our 

 gardens and fields are trophies of man s conquest over wild 

 nature, for to whatever he bring his intelligence, he seems to 

 impart an added beauty and utility. A wild plant or animal is 

 only such in its relations to him, its separation, so to speak, 

 from his uses; and the nearer animal life approaches to man in 

 the scale of power and intelligence, the more capable it seems 

 of entering into his service . 



This process of assimilation began in the morning of time, 

 and has left no trace of its earlier steps. The oldest agricul 

 tural records are seen upon the Egyptian monuments, where we 

 find the fobdful date tree everywhere represented. The banks 

 of the Tigris, Euphrates and the Nile were doubtless the scene 

 of the earliest attempts at agricultural labors in propagating and 

 increasing the fertility of this tree, upon which both men and 

 animals depended for sustenance. It is a singular fact that the 

 date requires artificial impregnation. This fact was early dis 

 covered, and led to a simple festival known to this day as the 

 marriage of the palm, in which not only the peasants, but 

 camels, asses, and even fowls and dogs participate. The ex 

 uberance of vegetable life in the valley of the Nile, where a 

 favorable temperature is constant, and where inexhaustible 

 fertility is maintained by the periodical distribution of new 

 materials, accounts for the speed with which wealth was crea 

 ted and population increased. Four hundred date palms may 

 be grown on one and three quarters acres of land, each bearing 

 a hundred pounds of fruit. From the rich soil of the river the 

 lotus furnished a nourishing seed or bean, from which the 

 bread of the common people was made. Later the dhourra, or 

 millet, which now yields to the labor of upper Egypt a return 

 of two hundred and forty fold, served the same purpose. All 

 these plants and their modes of culture are described in pict 

 ures and hieroglyphics which, seem to defy the effacing fin 

 ger of time. 



We also find upon the Egyptian monuments the earliest rec- 



