374 WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY, 
limited to seven acres at first—subsequently to fifty acres, then 
later to five hundred acres — “the large fish gradually consuming 
the small ones.” In the early days of the Roman Republic, agri¬ 
culture was honored and followed as an avocation by noble Romans 
who had distinguished themselves in other walks of life — as sol¬ 
diers, as statesmen. This was the time when commerce was con¬ 
sidered low and degrading by the Romans; when war and agricul¬ 
ture were considered high and noble occupations—the farmer think¬ 
ing himself justly able to defend his farm—but when luxury, lust, 
love of empire, seized the Roman mind, agriculture was entrusted 
to the bondmen who had no interest in the soil the}^ tilled, and ag¬ 
riculture, as an art, went with the empire to ruins. Southern Europe 
was overrun by the barbarians from the north, and from the 5th to 
the 16th century, agriculture was in a wretched condition. 
During the long night of the middle ages it groped its way with 
ignorance, bigotry and superstition; it had only an enforced exist¬ 
ence; it afforded a hateful and stinted supply to man and beast. 
The worst of villanage and serfdom prevailed. The masses were 
in most miserable circumstances. And when it M^as ascertained 
that no deluge would again come to wash landlord and villain from 
the face of the earth — no “ brimstone and fire from the Lord out 
of heaven to destroy the cities and all the plains, all the inhab¬ 
itants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground,” 
then it was that efforts were made by the more intelligent to lay 
a foundation for civilization and progress. Villanage and feudal 
despotism began to disappear at the beginning of the 16th cen¬ 
tury. The art of printing had been discovered. A new world 
had been found. The Reformation had overrun nearly all Europe. 
Mental activity, intellectual vigor, had stimulated search for knowl¬ 
edge, and all classes of society began to improve. Agriculture, 
however, made slow progress through the 17th and 18th centuries. 
AGRICULTURE AS A SCIENCE. 
Ages and ages had rolled away before the light of science dawned 
upon the agricultural world. In 1776, Arthur Young wrote in his 
“ Annals of Agriculture,” in substance, that agriculture could not 
rest pon a solid basis regulated by just and accurately drawn prin¬ 
ciples without the chemical qualities of soils and fertilizing proper¬ 
ties being well understood. This led to an investigation of the ele- 
