A TREATISE 



ON 



AGRICULTURE 



CHAPTER I. 



OF THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF AGRICULTURE. 



THE origin of this art is lost among the fables of 

 antiquity, and we have to regret that, in the present 

 state of knowledge, we are even ignorant of the 

 time when the plough was invented, and of the 

 name and condition of the inventor.* When, there- 

 fore, we speak of the beginning of the art, we but al- 

 lude to certain appearances which indicate its exist- 

 ence, and the employment given by it to the minds, 

 as well as to the hands of mankind. Such were 

 the artificial canals and lakes of Egypt. Menaced 

 at one time by a redundancy of water, and at an- 

 other by its scarcity or want, the genius of that 

 very extraordinary people could not but employ it- 

 self, promptly and strenuously, in remedying these 

 evils, and eventually in converting them into bene- 

 fits ; and hence it was, that, when other parts of the 

 world exhibited little more of agricultural knowl- 

 edge than appertains to the state of nature ima- 

 gined by philosophers, the Egyptians thoroughly un- 

 derstood and skilfully practised irrigation, that most 



* This invention has been attributed to Osiris. See Millot's 

 Gen. Hist. 



