DIVISION III, 



AGRICULTURE. 



CHAPTER I. 



HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE. 



NOTHING, perhaps, would be more interesting to the Ameri- 

 can farmer than a correct detailed description of the agricultural 

 methods of antiquity. It would serve to mark the progress that 

 has been made in that pursuit, and disclose the fact, which 

 many seem to doubt, that the steady, plodding farmer has per- 

 formed his full share in bringing about the civilization of the 

 present, by making rapid strides in the development of every 

 branch of his vocation. It would also be gratifying to know 

 how the nations of the long ago tilled the soil, sowed, planted, 

 reaped, or gathered ; what crops they cultivated, and by what 

 methods they were converted into use. Such information, how- 

 ever, has been withheld, as the records which have come down 

 to us are all but silent upon these topics. 



The fact that agriculture, as an industry, antedates all others, 

 is admitted by every one. The first want of man is food, and 

 his first resource for it was the ground. Whether herbs or 

 fruits were resorted to must have depended upon their relative 

 abundance in the locality where man began his career upon 

 earth. Doubtless the fruits were preferred at first, until the 

 use of fire, in the preparation of the herbs, was discovered. 

 Upon this hypothesis, the first care and labor of man would 

 have been bestowed upon fruit trees, and hence gardening may 

 be said to have been the art of earliest invention. 



But man is also a carnivorous animal, and this propensity of 

 his nature would soon lead him to attempt to domesticate such 

 animals as he found most useful in affording him milk, food, or 



