A.MERICAN HUSBANDRY. 



CHAPTER I. 



HISTORICAL NOTICES OF AGRICULTURE. 



Origin and Necessity of Agriculture. — Ancient Method of TiU 

 ling the Soil. — Greek and Roman Agriculture.— Early Eng- 

 lish AgricuUure. — Improvements in Stock and Farming Pro- 

 cesses. — Modern Agriculture. 



[The oldest occupation of mankind was that of cul- 

 tivating the earth ; and from the time that the first 

 pair, " hand-in-hand," went forth exiles from Para- 

 dise, it has constituted the great business of the hu- 

 man race. Cain was a tiller of the ground, Abel 

 was a wool-grower, and Noah was a husbandman. 

 To Moses we are obliged to look for the first history 

 of agriculture, as well as the earliest records of our 

 race. Traditionary accounts in later writers of an- 

 tiquity trace its history far back towards the Noa- 

 chian period, but the earUest catalogue of domestic 

 animals, and the first direct statements of the con- 

 dition of patriarchal society, are to be found in the 

 history of Abraham. 



Ingenious writers, as StiUingfleet and Newton, 

 Rennell and Grimm, have endeavoured to trace the 

 origin of agriculture to some particular part of the 

 world, and Egypt seems to have been a favourite 

 s arting-point with these and other writers. That 

 *" corn" was very early and extensively grown in 

 Egypt, cannot be doubted ; but the culture of grain 

 there, rather than in the other districts then occu- 

 pied by the human race, appears to have been as 



