19 



the individual owner be benefitted but the country at large 

 be richer. 



I have been particularly impressed with this in reading the 

 work of Moll and Gayot on cattle, in which they consider inci- 

 dentally the relations which cattle growing bears to other 

 departments of agriculture. To follow out their idea, let us 

 contrast the conditions of the countries and people of South- 

 ern Europe with those of Northern Europe, or better the 

 region about the Mediterranean with that about the North sea. 

 The countries adjacent the Mediterranean offer as a striking 

 example. These countries, once the home of a high civiliza- 

 tion, and swarming with a dense population, having countless 

 villages and rich cities, are now all more or less despoiled of 

 their ancient grandeur and wealth. Spain, South France, 

 Sicily, Italy, Greece, Syria, <fcc., countries of Europe, Asia, 

 and Africa, having nothing else in common, separated by dif- 

 ferent races, different religions, different civilizations are rep- 

 resented, but all have gone down alike, and neither political re- 

 volutions, nor bad government, nor mahomedan invasion can 

 explain tins. And how-explain one single exception to this, 

 in this waste there is one country which in spite of revolu- 

 tions, of brutalizing despotism, of war, and misrule, has con- 

 tinued to be a rich and populous people, and continued to 

 be the granary of a part of Europe ? we mean Egypt. Why 

 has this continued fertile while all the rest have become 

 sterile ? You are well acquainted witli the explanation ; the 

 overflows of the Nile have kept up the fertility undiminished 

 since the days of the Pharaohs. But the agriculture of Egypt 

 is almost without cattle. They are but sparingly needed for 

 farm labor. And the people needed no manure on their 

 fields, they have gathered their harvest for scores of centuries, 

 and the ever faithful Nile has returned the elements of fer- 

 tility which the crops removed. The people always took from 

 the soil but never returned anything. Egypt was the cradle 

 of European civilization and this principle was carried into 

 the agriculture of the colonies about the Mediterranean, ex- 

 tending even to Central Europe, " and to this principle is due 

 the decline of those lands once so prosperous and fertile, that 



