MANURES FOR FRUIT AND 

 OTHER TREES 



CHAPTER I 



HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 



"There is no part of history so generally useful as that which 

 relates the progress of the human mind . . . the successive 

 advances of Science." — Johnson. 



The art of cultivating the soil is one of the oldest 

 industries ; and according to Bretschneider and 

 other authors, China and Japan ^ cultivated cereals 

 and other crops 3,000 years before the Christian era. 

 The art of cultivating the cereals passed from 

 China, Egypt and PhcBnicia,^ and finally into 

 Europe— being highly cultivated during the G-reek 

 and Eoman empires. Homer,^ Theophrastus, Cato, 



1 Rein's Industries of Japan. The Japanese have a proverb, 

 "nowakuni no moto" (agriculture is the prop of the country). 

 See also Menard's La Vie Privie des Anciens, t. 3, pp. 1 — 88. 



2 Bawlinson's Phoenicia. 



3 Gladstone's Juventus Mwndi, p. 97. 



B 



