Book I. AGRICULTURE OF ANTIQUITY. 7 



them, till it acquires a velocity sufficient to enable them to throw the water over a bank 

 into a canal. They work stark naked, or if in summer only with a slight blue cottoa 

 shirt or belt. " [Clarke s Travels, 8cc.) 



12. Of these immeyise embajikments, some of which served to keep in the river, and 

 others to oppose the torrents of sand which occasionally were blown from the Great Desert, 

 and which threatened to cover the country as effectually as the waters of the Nile, the 

 ruins still remain. But in spite of these remains, the sand is accumulating, and the 

 limits of cultivated Egypt have been annually decreasing for the last 1200 years; the 

 barbarous nations to which the banks of the Nile have been subject during this period 

 having paid no attention to cultivation, or the preservation of these noble works of 

 antiquity. 



1 3. Landed property, in ancient Egypt, it would appear, was the absolute right of the 

 owners, till by the procurement of Joseph, in the eighteenth century B, C, the paramount 

 or allodial property of the whole was transferred to the government. The king, however, 

 made no other use of that right, than to place the former occupiers in the situation of 

 tenants in capite ; bound to pay a rent or land-tax of one fifth of the produce. This, 

 Moses says, continued to be the law of Egypt down to his time; and the same thing is 

 confirmed by the testimony of Herodotus and ^trabo. 



14. The soil of Egypt is compared by Pliny to that of the Leontines, formerly regarded 

 as the most fertile in Sicily. There, he says, corn yields a hundred for one ; but Cicero, 

 as Gouguet observes, has proved this to be an exaggeration, and that the ordinary increase 

 in that part of Sicily is eight for one. Granger (Relnt. du Voy.fait en Egypte, 1730.), 

 who paid much attention to this subject, says that the lands nearest to the Nile, which 

 during the inundation were covered with water forty days, did not, in the most favorable 

 seasons, yield more than ten for one ; and that those lands which the water covered only 

 five days, seldom gave more than four for one. This, however, is probably owing to 

 their present neglected state. 



15. Of the animal or vegetable products of Egyptian agriculture, very little is known. 

 The ox seems to have been the chief animal of labor from the earliest period ; and rice 

 at all times the principal grain in cultivation. By a painting 

 discovered in the ancient Elethia, [fig. 6.) it would appear 

 the operation of reaping was performed much in the same way 

 as at present, the ears being cropped by a hook, and the prin- 

 cipal part of the straw left as stubble. Herodotus mentions, 

 that, in his time, wheat was not cultivated, and that the bread 

 made from it was despised, and reckoned not fit to be eaten. 

 Beans were also held in abhorrence by the ancient inhabitants : 

 but it is highly probable, that in latter times, when they began 

 to have commerce with other nations, they would lay aside 

 these and other prejudices, and cultivate what they found best 

 suited to the foreign market. 



1 6. Agriculture was no doubt the chief occupation of the Egyptians : and though they 

 are said to have held the profession of shepherd in abhorrence, yet it appears Pharaoh 

 not only had considerable flocks and herds in his own possession, but was desirous of in- 

 troducing any improvement which might be made in their management : for when Jacob, 

 in answer to his questions, told him, that he and his family had been brouo-ht up to the 

 care of live stock from their youth, he expressed a wish to Moses to have a Jewish 

 bailiff' for the superintendence of his grazing farm : " if thou knowest any men of activity 

 among them, then make them rulers over my cattle." [Gen. xlvii. 6.) 



Sect. II. Of the Agriculture of the Greeks. 



17. The aboriginal Greeks or Pelasgi were civilised by colonies from Egypt, and re- 

 ceived from that country their agriculture, in common with other arts and customs. 

 Some of the ancient Greeks pretend that the culture of corn was taught them by 

 Ceres ; but Herodotus and most of the ancients concur in considering this divinity as the 

 same with the Egyptian Isis. There is no particular evidence that the Greeks were 

 much attached to, or greatly improved agriculture ; though Homer gives us a picture of 

 old King Lacrtesj divested of wealth, power, and grandeur, and living happy on a little 

 farm, the fields of which were well cultivated. [Odyssey, lib. xxiv.) On another occa- 

 sion, he represents a king standing amongst the reapers, and giving them directions by 

 pointing with his sceptre. [Ibid. v. 550.) Xenoplion highly commends the art; but 

 the practical instances he refers to, as examples, are of Persian kings. 



18. What we know of the agriculture of Greece, is chiefly derived from the poem of 

 Hesiod, entitled Works and Days. Some incidental remarks on the subject may be 

 found in the writings of Herodotus, Xenophon, Theophrastus, and others. Varro, a 

 Roman, writing in the century preceding the commencement of our aera, informs us, 

 that there were more than fifty authors, who might at that time be consulted on the sub*. 



B 4 



