374 AGRICULTURE. 



preserved on the estates of the Church. With the general 

 revival of arts and letters, which took place during the sixteenth 

 century, agriculture also revived ; first in Italy, and then in 

 France and Germany ; but it flourished most in Switzerland 

 and Holland ; and finally, in recent times, has attained its high- 

 est degree of perfection in England. 



The modern agriculture of America is copied from that of 

 Europe ; and the same may be said of the agriculture of Euro- 

 pean colonies, established in different parts of the world. The 

 authors whose writings relate to the period under consideration 

 are few, and the relations of some of them very contradictory. 

 The earliest is Moses (B.C. 1600). Herodotus and Diodorus 

 Siculus, who wrote more particularly on the history and geog- 

 raphy of Egypt, lived, the former in the fifth, and the latter in 

 the sixth, century B.C. ; and Hesiod, the ancient Greek writer on 

 husbandry, in the tenth century preceding our era. It is truly 

 remarkable that, in the eastern countries, the state of agriculture 

 and other arts, and even of machinery, at that period, does not 

 appear to have been materially different from what it is in the 

 same countries at the present day. Property in land was recog- 

 nized, the same grains cultivated, and the same domestic animals 

 reared or employed. Some led a wandering life and dwelt in 

 tents, like the Arabs, and others dwelt in towns or cities and 

 pursued agriculture and commerce, like the fixed nations. It 

 is reasonable, indeed, and consistent with received opinions, 

 that this should be the case ; for, admitting the human race to 

 have been nearly exterminated at the deluge, those who sur- 

 vived that catastrophe would possess the more useful arts and 

 general habits of life of the antediluvian world. Noah, accord- 

 ingly, is styled a husbandman, and is said to have cultivated the 

 vine, and to have made wine. In little more than three centu- 

 ries afterwards, Abraham is stated to have had extensive flocks 

 and herds, slaves of both sexes, silver and gold, and to have 

 purchased a family sepulchre with a portion of territory around 

 it. Isaac, his son, during his residence in Palestine, is said to 

 have sown and reaped a hundred fold. 



Grain seems to have been grown in abundance in Egypt, for 

 Abraham, and afterwards Jacob, had recourse to that country 

 during times of famine. Irrigation was also extensively prac- 



