M.—AGRICULTURE 225 
has been surmised that it came about through the conquest of the cultivator 
peoples of Egypt and Mesopotamia by herdsmen peoples from the north- 
east. The combination did many things. It made possible the applica- 
tion of animal power to the soil. It enabled permanent agriculture to 
replace shifting cultivation. It provided at once greater abundance, more 
variety and greater security in the food supply. It enabled men to fix 
their abodes and thus made worth while the building of permanent 
dwellings and the accumulating of household goods. It set free human 
energy for the arts of civilisation. In short, it enabled the men who 
devised it to inherit the earth. 
But life for these innovators became not only fuller but also more 
complicated. Man had to organise the food supply not only of his family 
but also of his beasts, and to this end he had to bring under cultivation 
new species of plants and invent new methods of fodder conservation. 
As the mixed farmers spread over the world they had continually to 
exercise their ingenuity in adapting their system to the varying natural 
conditions of their new homes. 
This system was improved and modified during ancient and medieval 
times without undergoing any fundamental change. There was a minor 
hiving off of other industries from farming and a consequent growth of 
trade; there were some temporary experiments in the mass production 
of food, especially by the Romans and by means of slave labour. But up 
till the time of the industrial revolution the typical citizen of the civilised 
world was the family farmer, looking to his own land to supply the bulk 
of his material needs and producing but little for sale. He remains to-day 
the typical citizen of many great and populous countries, and his class is 
easily the most numerous in the world. 
But the eighteenth century saw the beginnings of another great change. 
Primarily this had little to do with the business of growing food or other 
farm produce. It concerned what had hitherto been but minor industries, 
occupying the time of the farmer and his wife in winter evenings or 
employing a few village craftsmen—industries like the spinning of 
yarn and the weaving of cloth, the fashioning of ploughshares and of cart 
wheels. The successful application of mechanical power to these 
manufacturers meant their removal to convenient sources of power 
and, therefore, their removal from the farm. The separation of agriculture 
from other industries meant an increase in the exchange of goods, and 
this necessitated, in turn, the provision of improved means of transport 
and a great increase in the supply of money and credit. 
The agricultural changes which accompanied the industrial revolution 
were changes of organisation rather than of technique. There was 
(with the possible exception of Meikle’s threshing machine) no new 
agricultural invention comparable to the spinning mule, the power loom, 
the new blast furnace or the steamship. The successful application of 
mechanical power to the soil was not to be achieved for another hundred 
years. But farmers had to replan their industry with their eyes upon a 
market rather than upon their own personal requirements. This favoured 
a degree of specialisation in production that had hitherto been impossible. 
It favoured a larger type of enterprise and led to the engrossing of farms. 
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