12 AMERICAN FARMS. 



tions, there still remained a goodly number of the noblest 

 and truest citizens who continued to hold to the once 

 universal custom — attachment to the cultivation of the 

 soil. Many it seems shared the sentiments of Cato — 

 "a pursuit in which a wise man's life should be spent." 



The ancient Egyptians also gave the greatest attention 

 to agriculture, and carried it up to a high state of perfec- 

 tion. Writers claim that their paintings and inscriptions 

 lead to the conclusion that an advanced stage of civiliza- 

 tion also accompanied this love of and pride in this 

 choicest of occupations. 



With the other nations of antiquity, the Israelites were 

 also remarkable for the high proficiency to which they 

 carried agricultural pursuits. In the " Encyclopaedia 

 Britannica " will be found the following concise passage, 

 relative to the importance of agriculture with the early 

 Israelites : " The sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt trained 

 them for the more purely agricultural life that awaited 

 them on their return to take possession of Canaan. 

 Nearly the whole population were virtually husbandmen. 

 Upon their entrance into Canaan, they found the coun- 

 try occupied by a dense population possessed of walled 

 cities and innumerable villages, masters of great accumu- 

 lated wealth, and subsisting on the produce of their 

 highly cultivated soil, which abounded with vineyards 

 and olive-yards. It was so rich in grain that the invad- 

 ing army, numbering 601,730 able-bodied men, with their 

 wives and children, and a mixed multitude of camp 

 followers, found ' old corn ' in the land sufficient to main- 

 tain them from the day that they passed the Jordan." 



Sully's saying, " tillage and pasture are the two 

 breasts of the state," is just as true to-day as when the 

 expression was first used ; and the ancient belief, that 



