212 
Annual Report of the 
become so enervated by idleness and luxury, and debauched by 
crimes and immoralities, that the empire became an easy prey to 
the savage hords of Huns, Goths, and Vandals, as well as other bar¬ 
barous tribes from the north of Europe, who swept down over Italy 
like avenging demons, and buried the science of Roman agriculture 
as well as the other arts and sciences of the empire in one common 
ruin. In this overwhelming destruction, slavery, in the form it had 
long existed, was destroyed. 
In its place a sysetm of Feudalism grew up and speedily spread 
itself over the entire continent of Europe. This was in fact, a mod¬ 
ified form of slavery. The Feudal lords being the proprietors of the 
soil, and their serfs or subjects being the laborers by whom the soil 
was cultivated, The pay in almost every case being simply a mea^ 
ger supply of the plainest food and clothing, merely sufficient to 
sustain them in working condition, and a cheap hut or hovel to 
protect them from the cold and storms. In addition to their la¬ 
bors, the serfs were obliged to perform military duty whenever their 
haughty lords commanded. The agricultural condition of Europe 
was in a most wretched condition. 
Such was the situation at the beginning of the eighth centur} r ; 
and from that time down to the middle of the fourteenth centnr} r , 
the history of Europe is one of ignorance, bigotry, superstition and 
barbarous inhumanity. It is useless to follow the science of agri¬ 
culture through those dark ages. As a science, it ceased to exist. 
A meager subsistence was all that was expected or obtained by the 
cultivators of the soil, and the comforts and luxuries of life, as we 
understand them to-day, were utterly unknown to them. 
During the last half of the fourteenth century, there seemed to 
be a little improvement, at least in some places. Strange as it may 
seem, the fact is, that we know but little of the agricultural condi¬ 
tion of modern Europe until within the last one hundred and fifty 
years; and that little is not at all calculated to make us proud of 
our ancestors. 
We have a description of the British Islands as they were about 
the commencement of the seventeenth century, by Macaulay. It 
is the fullest and most perfect that I have been able to find. He, in 
his History of England says: “According to a computation made in 
1696, the whole quantity of wheat, rye, oats, barley and beans then 
annually grown in the kingdom, was less than ten millions of quar- 
