No. 129. j 555 



[Presented by Consul Aguiar, of Brazil — O'AuxiHador da Tndustria, Rio De Janeiro, 1851. 

 Extracts translated by H. Meigs.] 



A brief review of the history and present condition and principles 

 of Agriculture. — In the sixteenth century this great interest was 

 well understood. Sully justly said, labor and manufactures are the 

 two heads of the state. 



The sciences are at work, and agriculture by aid of all of them, 

 is fast becoming a rational occupation. 



We will finish by saying a word as to its importance. At all 

 times and in all places has the country life been proudly sung for 

 its pleasures and for the purity of its habits and customs. 



It ought to be the main work of every government to inspire 

 a love for it, and to develope all its advantages ; to impose such 

 restraints on foreign articles as shall jrotect its own exclusively. 

 For agriculture is entitled to the proud name of systema protector j 

 the protecting system. 



The invention of the art of printing soon made manifest ame- 

 lioriation in agriculture. Camillo Torello, the Venetian, taught 

 the alternation of crop and thorough and deep tillage 300 years 

 ago. Herrera, of Spain, Heresbach, of Germany, followed Ca- 

 millo. Fitzherbert, ot England, wrote a book of husbandry, and 

 England began to breed stock. In France, Olivier de Serres wrote 

 his Theatre of Agriculture, to which we owe our first knowledge 

 of the potato. 



In the seventeenth century agriculture made progress in gene- 

 ral in most countries of Europe, which continues to our days, 

 sometimes rapidly, and then again slowly. The names of the 

 leaders of amelioration deserve to be known : Hartlib the Polish 

 refugee, on Belgian agriculture ; Jethro Tull, of England, on drill 

 husbandry ; the alternate husbandry of W. A. Kreysigg ; Von 

 Thaer, who introduced English agriculture into Germany! 



Pliny said, (1,700 years ago) that " the earth rejoiced as it felt 

 the movement of the laurelled tiiumi hal ploughman." 



