10 AMERICAN HUSBANDRY. 



of the ancients, it appears that their grain was cut 

 with a sickle or short scythe, not differing essen- 

 tially in form or operation from those now in use, as 

 after the reaper most of the stubble seems to have 

 been left. At first seed was sown and raked in by 

 hand ; but the square harrows that hang on the 

 shoulders of Osiris, with the other implements of 

 agriculture, show that, in Egypt at least, agriculture 

 had advanced considerably from its primitive sim- 

 plicity and rudeness. 



Hesiod, a Grecian writer who lived ten centuries 

 B.C., has given one of the most full and interesting 

 accounts of ancient agriculture. The grains at pres- 

 ent cultivated were then common ; the leguminous 

 plants, with the vine, fig, olive, date, apple, and 

 some other fruits, had been introduced ; and though 

 sheep, swine, goats, mules, cattle, asses, and horses 

 Avere abundant, there is no intimation that herbage 

 plants or artificial grasses had been brought into 

 cultivation. Flax was common, and hay was made 

 from natural meadows. 



Notwithstanding the imperfect modes practised 

 by the ancients, we have many incidental notices 

 that show the productiveness of soils in those early 

 days. IMoses describes the farming of Isaac at Ge- 

 rar, and gives him a crop of a hundred fold. Mark 

 makes the seed sown on good ground produce thir- 

 ty, forty, sixty, or a hundred fold. Varro asserts, 

 that some of the most fertile districts of Spain pro- 

 duced a hundred to one. Pliny, in his Natural His- 

 tory, says, "There was sent from Byzacium in Af- 

 rica, to Augustus, by his factor, nearly 400 stalks, all 

 from one grain ; and to Nero, 340 stalks." He adds, 

 " I have seen the soil of this field, which, when dry, 

 the stoutest team cannot plough ; but after rain, I 

 have seen it opened up by a share drawn by a wretch- 

 ed ass on one side and an old woman on the other." 

 It is such accidental sketches as these that exhibit, 

 not only the state of agriculture, but the state of so- 

 ciety and the human race in those ages. 



