Book I. AGRICULTURE OF ANTIQUITY. If 



metal, and forked (ci), such probably as we see it in use in Judea, and the land of Canaan^ 

 at the present day. 



33. Vineyards were planted on rising grounds, fenced round, the soil well prepared, and 

 a vintage-house and watch-tower built in a centrical situation (Isaiah v. 2.), as is still 

 done in European Turkey and Italy. Moses gives directions to the Jews for culti- 

 vating the vine and other fruit-trees ; the three first years after planting, the fruit is not 

 to be eaten ; the fourth, it is to be given to the Lord ; and it is not till the fifth year 

 that they are ** to eat of the fruit thereof." (Levit. xix. 25.) The intention of these 

 precepts was to prevent the trees from being exhausted by bearing before they had ac- 

 quired sufficient strength and establishment in the soil. 



34. Of other agricultural operations and cuslomSy it may be observed with Dr. Brown, 

 {Antiq. of the Jeivs, vol. ii. part xii. sect. 5, 6. ), that they differed very little from the- 

 existing practices in the same countries as described by modern travellers. 



35. The agricultural produce of the Jews was the same as among the Egyptians; com, 

 wine, oil, fruits, milk, honey, sheep, and cattle, but not swine. The camel then, as now, 

 was the beast of burden, and long journeys (Jig. 9. ) ; and the horse, the animal of war and 

 luxury. The fruit of the sycamore-fig was abundant, and in general use ; and grapes 



attained an astonishing size, both of berry and bunch ; the melon and gourd tribes were 

 common. The returns of corn were in general good ; but as neither public stores, nor 

 corn monopolisers, seem to have existed, dearths, and their attendant miseries, happened 

 occasionally. A number of these are mentioned in Scripture, and some of extraordinary 

 severity. 



36. Of the agriculture of the other civilized and stationary nations of this period, scarcely 

 any thing is known. According to Herodotus, the soil of Babylon was rich, well cul- 

 tivated, and yielded two or three hundred for one. Xenophon, in his book of (Eco- 

 nomics, bestows due encomiums on a Persian king, who examined, with his own eyes,^ 

 the state of agriculture throughout his dominions ; and in all such excursions, according 

 as occasion required, bountifully rewarded the industrious, and severely discountenanced 

 the slothful. In another place he observes, that when Cyrus distributed premiums with 

 his own hand to diligent cultivators, it was his custom to say, " My friends, I have a like 

 title with yourselves to the same honors and remuneration from the public ; I give you 

 .o more than I have deserved in my own person ; having made the self-same attempts 

 with equal diligence and success." ((Econom. c. iv. sect. 16.) The same author else- 

 where remarks, that a truly great prince ought to hold the arts of war and agriculture in 

 the highest esteem ; for by such means he will be enabled to cultivate his territories 

 effectually, and protect them .when cultivated. (Harte's Essays, p. 19.) 



87. Phwnicia, a country of Asia, at the east of the Mediterranean, has the reputation 

 of having been cultivated at an early period, and of having colonised and introduced 

 agriculture at Carthage, Marseilles, and other places. The Phoenicians are said to 

 have been the original occupiers of the adjoining country of Canaan ; and when driven 

 out by the Jews, to have settled in Tyre and Sidon (now Sur and Saida), in the fifteenth 

 century B. C. They were naturally industrious ; and their manufactures acquired such a 

 superiority over those of other nations, that among the ancients, whatever was elegant, 

 great, or pleasing, either in apparel or domestic utensils, was called Sidonian : but of their 

 agriculture it can only be conjectured that it was Egyptian, as far as local circumstances 

 would permit. 



38. The republic of Carthage included Spain, Sicily, and Sardinia, and flourished for 

 upwards of seven centuries previous to the second century B, C. Agriculture was 

 practised at an early period in Sicily ; and, according to some, Greece received that art 

 from this island. It must have been also considerably advanced in Spain, and in the 

 Carthaginian territory, since they had books on the subject. In 147 B. C, when Car- 

 thage was destroyed by Scipio, and the contents of the libraries were given in presents to 

 the princes, allies of the Romans, the senate only reserved the twenty-eight books on 

 agriculture of the Carthaginian general Magon, which Decius Syllanus was directed to 

 translate ; and of which the Romans preserved, for a long time, the original and the 

 translation. (Encyc. Methodique, art. Agriculture.) 



39. Italy, and a part of the south (f France, would probably be partially cultivated 

 from the influence of the Carthaginians in Sicily and Marseilles ; but the north of 

 France, and the rest of feurope, appear to have been chiefly, if not entirely, in a wild 



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