INTRODUCTION. 



.THE true art of cultivating the earth, is to cause it 

 to produce the greatest possible quantity of susten- 

 ance for man and beast, with the least possible in- 

 jury to the land. This art is the foundation of all 

 other arts; at once the most useful, healthful, and 

 agreeable. Snatch from man this glorious art, and 

 he at once sinks to a level with the savage, who 

 roams the forest, and dwells in rudely constructed 

 huts or caverns. Being the most ancient, as well as 

 the most useful, Agriculture is not only a national 

 blessing in one respect, that it feeds man and the an- 

 imals which he governs; but that it gives employ- 

 ment to seven-eighths of the people of all civilized 

 countries, and at the same time humanizes and harmo- 

 nizes the mind. 



The first account we have of the rise or of the ex- 

 istence of Agriculture, w r e find in the writings of Mo- 

 ses. Cain, we are there told, was a " tiller of the 

 ground," and that his brother Abel made a sacrifice 

 of the " firstlings of his flock." Again, we are told 

 that Noah " began to be a husbandman, and planted 

 a vineyard." 



