10 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



beauty of his plantations, the avenues of trees, the fragrant 

 shrubbery, and the delightful walks of the royal grounds ; and 

 when the Spartan warrior, with his native Greek love for art 

 said : " I admire the beautiful scene, but much more the artist 

 by whose skill it was created." Cyrus, king of all the East, 

 replied : " It was laid out and measured by myself, and a por- 

 tion of the trees planted by my own hands ; nor do I ever go 

 to my dinner," he continued, " till I have earned my appetite 

 by some military or agricultural exercise." There was the 

 basis of the Persian empire in agriculture — the employment of 

 kings, and nobles and peasants ; and not till great wars occur- 

 red, when agriculture was neglected, and the husbandman was 

 turned to the soldier, and, in oppressive taxation, their great 

 works for watering the soil were neglected and went to decay, 

 did the power of the nation cease. Then the drifting sands 

 came to hide the monuments of departed wealth and power 

 and glory, and the places where the olive and the vine grew, 

 and rich luxuriant verdure gladdened the eye, changed to the 

 wild and dreary desert. 



Agriculture did the same for Egypt as for Persia. By it she 

 attained tlie highest civilization and succeeded to the greatest 

 power, long before Grecian art or Roman heroism were known. 

 One of the Egyptian monarchs even changed the bed of the 

 Nile from along the Lydian chain of mountains to the center of 

 the valley, that agriculture might receive its benefits ; and it 

 was into Egypt that the roving tribes went for bread, and 

 became tributary therefor, even before the foundation of the 

 Pyramids were laid. With agricultural })rosperity, came science, 

 arts, and industry. " All the learning of the Egyptians" com- 

 prised at one time all tlie learning of the world. Into Egypt 

 God sent the miserable nomadic Jews to learn agriculture, 

 before they could be fitted for the great mission to Avhich they 

 were called. Without that agriculture the little territory of 

 Palestine could never have supported its great population, and 

 the Hebrew nation would not have arisen above the level of 

 their kinsmen, the barbarian Arabs of the south ; without that 

 Jerusalem would not have been, the temple and the altar would 

 not have existed ; the throne of David, at most, would have 

 been acknowledged only by roving tribes, and Solomon would 

 liave been without the wealth or wisdom of his day. 



