8 SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE. 



produces enough food for the support of the lower 

 animals, man is forced to earn his bread by the sweat 

 of his brow. 



3. In the early ages of the world, the population 

 was small, and the wants of men so few that very lit- 

 tle cultivation of the soil was required. The rivers 

 and forests supplied, in a great measure, both food 

 and clothing, until the increase of population origi- 

 nated necessities and luxuries which could only be 

 satisfied by increased cultivation. 



4. Although agriculture, as an art, has been prac- 

 tised to some extent by all nations, and in every age 

 of the world, its progress as a science has been very 

 slow. In fact, sciences of recent origin have made 

 much greater progress and are at this day more gen- 

 erally understood. There are men even now who 

 say that practical and scientific farming are very 

 different ; in other words, that agriculture is no sci- 

 ence at all. This is because they do not understand 

 its principles, or have a false notion of what scientific 

 agriculture really is. 



5. There are several reasons for the slow prog- 

 ress or growth of agriculture as a science. In the 

 first place, the dignity and importance of the pursuit 

 were not fully recognized until within recent times. 

 It is true that, in every age of the world, some good 

 and great men have been farmers. We read in his- 

 tory of Cincinnatus leaving his plow at the call of his 

 country, and of Putnam deserting his field of agri- 

 cultural labor for one of military glory, and even of 



