AGRICULTURE. Agriculture, in some of its subdivisions, has engaged the attention of man from the earliest ages. Even the most sav age tribes gather seeds and nuts for food, and soon learn to till the soil for the production of roots and grain in a crude way. Animals are at length caught and domesticated; from savage ism man emerges into barbarism, and possesses flocks and herds. At length semi-civilization brings some of the crude arts, and civilization and enlightenment the higher arts and sciences. As showing the progress of agriculture in Eng land in the fourteenth century, we give a cut reproduced from an old Saxon calendar, illus trating plowing and sowing between the centuries 1300 and 1400. In its broad sense, agriculture embraces all that pertains to the working of the soil and obtaining sustenance and clothing there from, whether it be from the cereal grains, past urage, hay, the herding, feeding and fattening of animals—all that relates to the making and applying of manures, the draining, and in fact to all which goes to increase the productive capacity of the soil. Agriculture is divided into two grand subdivisions: 1, That which relates to the farm proper; 2, that which relates to the forest, the orchard and garden. The first is called hus bandry, the second horticulture. Husbandry, again, is divided into the cultivation of farm crops, as grain, grass, fiber and other useful spe cial plants, stock breeding and feeding, and dairying. Of late years these subdivisions of husbandry have been more and more separated. Thus, large farms are used almost or quite ex elusively for the cultivation of grain; great estates are devoted almost entirely to the grazing of cattle; other extensive farms are devoted to the breeding of animals; others, again, are ployed exclusively in dairying; still another class have grown prominent within the last fifteen years, — feeders owning but little land, — who i buy up cattle and bogs in the autumn, and buy corn in the field with which to fatten them. The grain farmer may not be a breeder or feeder of stock for market, except to a limited extent. He may employ his energies almost exclusively in grain, as is often done in the settlement of new countries. So the feeder will confine himself often almost entirely to pasturage and hay, pending upon buying much of his grain. The dairyman will also bend his best energies in the direction of pasturage and hay, raising perhaps comparatively littlein. The breeder, how- ever, to be successful must raise not only turage and hay, but also grain. This gives a succession of crops, and also enables an ical rotation to be carried out, thus not only keeping the fertility of the farm intact, but, der proper management, increasing its fertility from year to year. Thus, as a country becomes settled up, we see the more sagacious farmers combine all the arts of husbandry, to a greater or less extent, and with profit. Or, again, the cipal industry to which the soil is adapted will be pursued to the f ull est extent possi ble, and the other branches carried forward as far as practical experi ence shows them to be warranted.
Inc second great division of agriculture, embraces pomology, or all that relates to the orchard; arboriculture, or that which pertains to the planting and care of trees, and the rearing and care of groves, forests and wind-breaks; vege table gardening, or the cultivation of plants for culinary use; floriculture, or the cultivation and care of flowers in the garden, conservatory, green-house and hot-house; landscape gardening, or all that pertains to the ornamentation of the home, public and private parks and landed es tates, in all enlightened countries, is one of the most important—the landscape gardener alone being obliged to deal with all the branches of horticulture. To return to ancient agriculture. Some years ago the editor, in preparing a work— The Groundswell—on agriculture and coopera tive effort thereon, wrote upon ancient agricult ure as follows: It is well known that, at some periods of ancient times, and in some countries, agriculture was held to be an honorable calling, and kings, princes and statesmen did not disdain to till the soil with their own hands. In ancient Egypt, where labored the men who reared the mighty pyramids, the priests and soldiers owned the lands—about six acres of the Delta of the Nile being allotted to each warrior. At war's alarm they sprang forth ready armed to fight for their estates and homes. In times of peace they grew and spun flax, and with the roots, herbs, wheat, and leguminous fruits which they raised, they supplied food for a large portion of the then known civilized earth. The Carthaginians con sidered agriculture to be of all callings the most aristocratic, and the kings, princes and nobles were among the most active cultivators of the soil. When the Romans finally subdued and laid waste the land, the only books which they deemed worthy of being carried away, it is said, were twenty-eight volumes of manuscripts relat ing to agriculture. The Chinese, who have bridges constructed 2,000 years ago, still con sider agriculture so noble an art that a solemn ceremony is each year performed at which the emperor is required to turn the soil. This na tion fed silk-worms before Solomon reared his temple. They built the great wall around the empire while Europe was yet wrapped in the gloom of the Dark Ages. They cultivated cotton centuries before the discovery of Amer ica. In many respects, their knowledge and practice concerning the careful tilling of the soil is to-day superior to ours, with all our boasted enlightenment. A tract of fifty square miles about Shanghai is called the Garden of China; and while we of the United States are lamenting our worn-out farms, and talking about -emigrating to virgin lands, this people, for count less generations, have tilled the same soil, and under their management, it is to-day as productive as ever. Some of the States of ancient Greece es teemed agriculture as the mother of arts, and their .agricultural products were exhibited at the Olym pic games. With the Spartans, however, agricult ure was contemned It was left to the Helots, their slaves, whom they thought fit only to culti vate the soil. It is not strange, therefore, that they should have been obliged to sup black broth (whatever that may have been). Nor is it strange that they took a distaste to their wretched fare, and finally rivaled even the Athenians in luxury, the laws of Lyeurgus to the contrary notwith standing. The earliest recorded history of agri culture is from inscriptions and hieroglyphics on the monuments and other works of stone that have come down to us. The following is a copy of one of the Egyptian plows, at a time very ancient but yet when civilization was very con siderable. It is more than probable, however, that Egypt received the rudiments of her civili zation from China, since the oldest of her in scriptions seem to point that way. An ancient monument in Asia Minor shows a plow and yoke, supposed to be the oldest known, made wholly of wood, the natural crooks of a tree. Fig. 1 shows the plow, and Fig. 2 the yoke, both the crudest imaginable. Yet at this day the Chinese, and indeed all the Oriental nations, 2 where they have not come in direct contact with the civilization of Europe and America, still use the crudest forms imaginable. Of ancient ag riculture one really knows but very little. From both sacred and profane history we know that Egypt was rich in grain. The paintings and in scriptions of ancient Egypt show that they had carried the cultivation of the soil to a high state of perfection. They understood the art of ma nuring, the value of rotation. Gardens, orchards, fish-ponds, and preserves of game were part and portion of ancient Egyptian villas. A steward directed the operations of the farm, superintend ing the laborers, and kept the accounts. Agri culture from the fall of Rome to the beginning of the present century has been summed up as follows: In the ages of anarchy and barbarism which succeeded the fall of the Roman empire, agriculture was almost wholly abandoned. Pas turage was preferred to tillage, because of the facility with which sheep, oxen, etc., could be driven away or concealed on the approach of an enemy. The conquest of England by the Nor mans contributed to the improvement of agri culture in Great Britain. Owing to that event, many thousands of husbandmen, from the fertile and well-cultivated plains of Flanders and mandy, settled in Great Britain, obtained farms, and employed the same methods in cultivating them, which they had been accustomed to use in their native countries. Some of the Norman barons were great improvers of their lands, and were celebrated in history for their skill in culture The Norman clergy, and especially the monks, did still more in this way than the nobility. The monks of every monastery retained such of their lands as they could most conveniently take charge of, and these they cultivated with great care under their own inspection, and frequently with their own hands. The famous Thomas a Becket, after he was Archbishop of Canterbury, used to go out into the field with the monks of the monastery where he happened to reside, and join with them in reaping their corn and making their hay. The implements of agriculture at this period were similar to those in common use in more modern times. The various operations of husbandry, such as manuring, plowing, sowing, harrowing, reaping, threshing, winnowing, etc., are incidentally mentioned by the writers of those days, but it is impossible to collect from them a definite account of the manner in which those operations were performed. The first glish treatise on husbandry was published in the reign of Henry VIII., by Sir A. Fitzherbert, Judge of the Common Pleas. It is entitled the Book of Husbandry, and contains directions for draining, clearing and inclosing a farm, for enriching the soil and rendering it fit for till age. Lime, marl and fallowing are strongly recommended. The author of the Book of Hus bandry, says Mr Loudon, writes from his own experience of more than forty years, and, if we except his biblical allusions, and some ves tiges of the superstition of the Roman writers about the influences of the moon, there is very little of his work which should be omitted, and not a great deal that need be added, in so far as respects simple culture, in a manual of hus bandry adapted to the present time. Agriculture attained some eminence during the reign of Eliz abeth. The principal writers of that period were Tusser, Googe and Sir Hugh Platt. Tusser's Five Hundred Points of Husbandry was pub lished in 1562, and conveys much useful instruc tion in metre. The treatise of Barnaby Googe, entitled Whole Art of Husbandry, was printed in 1558. Sir Hugh Platt's work was entitled Jewel Houses of Art and Nature, and was printed in 1594. In the former work, says Loudon, are many valuable hints on the progress of hus bandry in the early part of the reign of Eliza beth. Among other curious things, he asserts that the Spanish or Merino sheep was originally derived from England From the Restoration down to the middle of the eighteenth century, agriculture remained almost stationary. Imme diately after that period, considerable improve ment in the process of culture was introduced by Jethro Tull, a gentleman of Berkshire, who be gan to drill wheat and other crops about the year 1701, and whose Horse-hoeing Husbandry was published in 1731. Though this writer's theories were in some respects erroneous, yet even his er rors were of service, by exciting inquiry and calling the attention of husbandmen to important objects. His hostility to manures, and attempt ing in all cases to substitute additional tillage in their place, were prominent defects in his sys tem. After the time of Tull's publication, no great alteration in British agriculture took place, till Robert Bakewell and others effected some im portant improvements in the breed of cattle, sheep and swine. By skillful selection at first, and constant care afterwards, to breed from the best animals, Bakewell at last obtained a variety of sheep, which, for early maturity and the prop erty of returning a great quantity of mutton for the food which they consume, as well as for the small proportion which the weight of the offal bears to the four quarters, were without prece dent. Culley, Cline, Lord Somerville, Sir J. S. Sebright, Darwin, Hunt, Hunter, Young; these have all contributed to the improvement of do mestic animals, and have left little to be de sired in that branch of rural economy. Among other works on agriculture, of distinguished merit, may be mentioned the Farmer's Letters, Tour in France, Annals of Agriculture, etc., by the celebrated Arthur Young; Marshall's nu merous and excellent works, commencing with Minutes of Agriculture, published in 1787, and ending with his Review of the Agricultural Re ports in 1816; Practical Agriculture, by Dr. R W. Dickson, and also the writings of Karnes, Anderson and Sinclair exhibit a union of philo sophical sagacity and patient experiment, which have produced results of great importance to the British nation and to the world. To these we need only add the hame of John Loudon, F. L. S. H S., whose elaborate Encyclopaedia of Gar dening and Encyclopedia of Agriculture have probably never been surpassed by any similar works in any language. The establishment of a National Board of Agriculture was of very great service to British husbandry. Hartlib, a century before, and Lord Karnes, in his Gentleman Far mer, had pointed out the utility of such an in stitution, but it was left to Sir John Sinclair to carry their ideas into execution. To the inde fatigable exertions of that worthy and eminent man the British public are indebted for an insti tution whose services can not be too highly ap preciated It made farmers, residing in different parts of the kingdom, acquainted with one an other, and caused a rapid dissemination of knowl edge amongst the whole profession. The art of agriculture was brought into fashion, old prac tices were amended, new ones introduced, and a degree of exertion called forth heretofore unex ampled among the farmers of Great Britain. Of some of the more important ancient nations we find that the nomads of the patriarchal ages, like the Tartar, and perhaps some of the Moorish tribes of our own, whilst mainly dependent upon their flocks and herds, practised also agriculture proper. The vast tracts over which they roamed were in ordinary circumstances common to all shepherds alike. During the summer they fre quented the mountainous districts, and retired to. the valleys in the winter. Vast flocks of sheep and of goats constituted the chief wealth of the nomads, although they also possessed animals of the ox kind. When these last were possessed in abundance, it seems to be an indication that tillage was practised. We learn that Job, be sides immense possessions in flocks and herds, had 500 yoke of oxen, which he employed in plowing, and a very great husbandry. Isaac, too, conjoined tillage with pastoral husbandry, and that with success, for we read that he sowed in the land Gerar, and reaped an hundred fold— a return which, it would appear, in some fa vored regions, occasionally rewarded the labor of the husbandman. Along with the Babylo nians, Egyptians and Romans, the Israelites are classed as one of the great agricultural nations of antiquity. The sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt trained them for the more purely agricult ural life that awaited them on their return to take possession of Canaan. Nearly the whole population were virtually husbandmen, and per sonally engaged in its pursuits. Upon their en trance into Canaan, they found the country oc cupied by a dense population possessed of walled cities and innumerable villages, masters of great accumulated wealth, and subsisting on the pro duce of their highly cultivated soil, which abounded with vineyards and olive-yards. It was so rich in grain that the invading army, numbering 601,730 able-bodied men, with their wives and children and a mixed multitude of camp-followers, found old corn in the land suffi cient to maintain them from the day they passed the Jordan. The Mosaic Institute contained an agrarian law, based upon an equal division of the soil amongst adult males, a census of whom was taken just before their entrance into Canaan. This land, held in direct tenure from Jehovah, their Sovereign, was strictly inalienable. The accumulation of debt upon it -was prevented by the prohibition of interest, the release of debts every seventh year, and the reversion of the land to the proprietor, or his heirs, at each return of the year of jubilee. The owners of these small farms cultivated them with much care, and ren dered them highly productive. They were fa vored with a soil extremely fertile, and one which their skill and diligence kept in good condition. The stones were carefully cleared from the fields, which were also watered from canals and con duits communicating with the brooks and streams with which the country was well watered everywhere, and enriched by the appli cation of manures. The seventh year's fallow prevented the exhaustion of the soil, which was further enriched by the burning of the mass of spontaneous growth of the Sabbatical year. The crops chiefly cultivated were wheat, millet, barley, beans and lentiles, to which it is sup posed, on grounds not improbable, may be added rice and cotton. The ox and the ass were used for labor. The word "oxen," which occurs in our version of the Scriptures, as well as in the Septuagint and Vulgate, denotes the species rather than the sex. As the Hebrews did not mutilate any of their animals, bulls were in common use. The quantity of land plowed by a yoke of oxen in one day was called a yoke, or acre. The slopes of the hills were carefully ter raced and irrigated wherever practicable, and on these slopes the vine and olive were cultivated with great success. At the same time the hill districts and neighboring deserts afforded pas turage for numerous flocks and herds, and thus admitted of the benefits of a mixed husbandry. With such political and social arrangements, and under the peculiar felicitous climate of Judea, the country as a whole, and at the more prosper ous periods of the commonwealth, must have ex hibited such an example of high cultivation, rich and varied produce, and wide-spread plenty and contentment as the world has seldom elsewhere produced on an equally extensive scale. The unrivaled literature of Greece affords us little in formation regarding the practical details of her husbandry. The people who, by what remains to us of their poetry, philosophy, history, and fine arts, still exert such an influence in guiding our intellectual efforts, in regulating taste, and in molding our institutions, were originally the invaders and conquerors of the territory which they have rendered so famous. Having reduced the aboriginal tribes to bondage, they imposed upon them the labor of cultivating the soil, and hence both the occupation and those engaged in it were regarded contemptuously by the dominant race, who addicted themselves to what they re garded as nobler pursuits. With the exceptions of certain districts, such as Bceotia, the country was naturally unfavorable to agriculture. When we find, however, that valleys were freed from lakes and morasses by drainage; that rocky surfaces were sometimes covered with transportable soil, and that they possessed excellent breeds of the domesticated animals, which were reared in vast numbers, we infer that agriculture was better un derstood and more carefully practised than the allusions to it in their literature would seem to warrant. Amongst the ancient Romans agricult ure was highly esteemed, and pursued with earnest love and devoted attention. In all their foreign enterprises, even in earliest times, as Schlegel re marks, they were exceedingly covetous of gain, or rather of land; for it was in land, and in the produce of the soil, that their principal and almost only wealth consisted. They were a thor oughly agricultural people, and it was only at a later period that commerce, trades, and arts were introduced among them, and even then they oc cupied but a subordinate place. Their passion for agriculture survived very long; and when at length their boundless conquest introduced an unheard of luxury and corruption of morals, the noblest minds amongst them were strongly at tracted towards the ancient virtues of the purer and simpler agricultural times. Several facts in Roman history afford convincing proof, if it were required, of the devotion of this ancient people to agriculture in their best and happiest times. Whilst their arts and sciences and gen eral literature were borrowed from the Greeks, they created an original literature of their own, of which rural affairs formed the substance and inspiration. Schlegel and Mr. Hoskyn noticed, also, the striking fact that, whilst among the Greeks the names of their illustrious families are borrowed from the heroes and gods of their my thology, the most famous houses amongst the ancient Romans, such as the Pisones, Fabii, Lentuli etc., have taken their names from their favorite crops and vegetables. Perhaps it is not much to assert that many of those qualities that fitted them for conquering the world and per fecting their so celebrated jurisprudence, were acquired, or at all events nourished and matured, by the skill, foresight, and persevering industry so needful for the intelligent and successful cul tivation of the soil. The words which Cicero puts into the mouth of Cato give a fine picture of the ancient Roman enthusiasm in agriculture: I come now to the pleasures of husbandry in which I vastly delight. They are not inter rupted by old age, and they seem to me to be pursuits in which a wise man's life should be spent. The earth does not rebel against author ity; it never gives back but with usury what it receives. The gains of husbandry are not what exclusively commend it. I am charmed with the nature and productive virtues of the soil. Can those old men be called unhappy who de light in the cultivation of the soil? In my opin ion there can be no happier life, not only because the tillage of the earth is salutary to all, but from the pleasures it yields. The whole estab lishment of a good and assiduous husbandman is stored with wealth; it abounds in pigs, in kids, in lambs, in poultry, in milk, in cheese, in honey. Nothing can be more profitable, nothing more beautiful, than a well-cultivated farm. In an cient Rome each citizen received, at first, an allotment of about two English acres. After the expulsion of the kings, this allotment was increased to about six acres. These small inher itances must, of course, have been cultivated by hard labor. On the increase of the Roman ter ritory the allotment was increased to fifty, and afterwards even to 500 acres. Many glimpses into their methods of cultivation are found in those works of the Roman authors which have survived the ravages of time. Cato speaks of irrigation, frequent tillage and manuring, as means of fertilizing the soil. Mr. Hoskyn, and others from whose contribution to,the History of Agriculture we have drawn freely in this histor ical summary, quotes the following interesting passage from Pliny, commenting on Virgil: Our poet is of opinion that alternate fallows should be made, and that the land should rest entirely every second year. And this is, indeed, both true and profitable, provided a man has land enough to give the soil this repose. But how, if his extent be not sufficient? Let him, in that case, help himself thus: Let him sow next year's wheat-crop on the field where he has just gath ered his beans, vetches, or lupines, or such other crop as enriches the ground. For, indeed, it is worth notice that some crops are sown for no other purpose but as for good for others; a poor practice, in my estimation. In another place he tells us: Wheat, the later it is reaped, the better it casts; but the sooner it is reaped, the fairer the sample. The best rule is to cut it down be fore the grain is got hard, when the ear begins to have a reddish-brown appearance. Better two
days too soon than as many too late, is a good old maxim, and might pass for an oracle. The following quotation from the same author is ex cellent • Cato would have this point especially to be considered, that the soil of a farm be good and fertile ; also, that near it there be plenty of laborers, and that it be not far from a large town ; moreover, that it have sufficient means for transporting its produce, either by water or land: and, also, that the house be well built, and the land about it as well managed. But I ob serve a great error and self-deception which many men commit, who hold opinion that the negligences and ill-husbandry of the former owner is good for his success or after-pur chaser. Now, I say, there is nothing more dan gerous and disadvantageous to the buyer than land so left waste and out of heart; and there fore Cato counsels well to purchase land of one who has managed, it well, and not rashly and hand-over-head to despise and make light of the skill and knowledge of another. He says, too, that as well land as men, which are of great charge and expense, how gainful soever they may seem to be, yield little profit in the end, when all reckonings are made. The same Cato, being asked, what was the most assured profit rising out of land? made this answer: To feed stock well. Being asked again, what was the next? he answered: To feed with moderation. By which answer he would seem to conclude that the most certain and sure revenue was a low cost of production. To the same point is to be referred another speech of his- That a good hus bandman ought to be a seller rather than a buyer; also, that a man should stock his ground early and well, but take long time and leisure before he be a builder ; for it is the best thing in the world, according to the proverb, to make use, and derive profit, from other men's follies. Still when there is a good and convenient house on the farm, the master will be closer occupied, and take the more pleasure in it; and truly it is a good saying, that the master's eye is better than his heel. In relation to the improvement of ag riculture in Great Britain during the last cen tury, it is undoubtedly true that this country is more indebted to Lord Bacon than to any of his contemporaries for the impetus which agricult ure received in his day. This great philosopher taught men, by the inductive method, to inquire into and to discover by experiment, step by step, through the great alphabet of nature — soils, gases, elements, etc.— the true relation which each bears to each. If all the votaries of agri culture had followed this great man's teachings we should have heard less of that myth—the Science of Agriculture. It might more truly be called the sum of all sciences, since, though it is made up of something of all sciences, neverthe less, it will never, in the nature of things, become in itself a true science. Early in the eighteenth century, Jethro Tull, one of the earliest and one of the best writers on agriculture that England ever had, did much, through the record of his ex periments in new and improved modes of cult ure to advance the customary system of till age, and to reduce it to rule. Tull was the father of drill husbandry, and the inventor of the horse-shoe. He also invented, but failed to perfect, the threshing-machine, leaving the final triumph in this direction for American genius to achieve, more than a century later Arthur Young is also justly celebrated for his labors in behalf of agriculture. He traveled extensively over Europe, to observe the various methods of tillage which prevailed. and is said to have edited nearly one hundred volumes relating to the pro fession. In Scotland, Lord Kames, and still more, Sir John Sinclair, were earnest and per severing patrons of agriculture. To the latter gentleman, Scotland is indebted for a complete agricultural survey of the country, with statis tical accounts relating to it. The publication of the fruits of his labors had the important result, among others, of leading to the establishment of the Board of Agriculture, in 1793, by Mr. Pitt. Sir Humphrey Davy was another benefactor of husbandry, deserving prominent mention. It was the result of Ins experiments which led to the establishment of Agricultural Chemistry as a recognized branch of modern science; and this is truly the corner-stone of agriculture. Recogniz ing a plant as a living thing, he held that the laws of their existence must be studied in order to develop the most perfect growth. By experi ments, and in his lectufes, he demonstrated that plants derive their component parts either from the atmosphere by which they are sur rounded, or from the soil in which they grow. These elements being principally carbon, nitro gen, oxygen and hydrogen; he showed by analy sis of soils and plants the relative nature of each, and the conditions necessary to best furnish the elements for growth, and proved that the process of vegetation depends upon their constant assimilation by the organs of plants, by means of moisture, light and heat. Coming to American agriculture, what a change has been wrought in the last forty years. Indeed, from the dark ages until the beginning of the nineteenth century there was no great and general advance in agriculture. Atthe close of the seventeenth century, England, then just beginning to obtain the mastery of the seas, had but one-half the area of that country in arable and pasture lands, the remainder being moor, forest and fen. As late as the begin ning of the nineteenth century much of the land in England either remained in forest or else was exhausted of its fertility. But all this is changed, and now, as Macaulay remarks, a hundred acres. which under the old system, produced annually, as food for cattle and manures, not more than forty tons, under improved culture yields the vast increase of 577 tons. At the close of the seventeenth century, America was only just beginning to be settled by colonies, widely sepa rated along the Atlantic coast. The interior was one unbroken primeval forest, until the great prairie region of the West was reached, which, after passing west of the Mississippi river, grad ually merged itself into what is now known as the great plains, east of the Rocky mountains. All this great country was then, and continued to be until long after the revolutionary war, in habited by wild Indians, more savage and cruel than the wild beasts. But the fertile soil and the great diversity of climate and its great natural water systems, soon attracted emigration from all parts of the civilized world. They have con tinued to flock in from year to year, until now they have occupied much of the available land— in connection with our own hardy pioneers—from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It is true that many large and fertile tracts are yet remaining, but a very few years more will find these all settled. Of the agriculture of the early part of the present cen tury we find the agricultural implements and farming operations of the United States, in most particulars, were very similar to those of Great Britain. Circumstances, however, required vari ations, which the sagacity of the American culti vator caused him to adopt, often in contradiction to the opinions of those who understand the science better than the practice of husbandry. In Europe, land was dear and labor cheap ; in the United States, the reverse was the case. The European cultivator was led, by a regard to his own interest, to endeavor to make the most of his land ; the American cultivator has the same inducement to make the most of his labor. Per haps, however, this principle, in America, was generally carried to an unprofitable extreme, and the farmers might have derived more benefit from their land, if they had to limit their operations to such parts of their possessions as they could afford to till thoroughly and manure abundantly. A man may possess a large landed estate, without being called on by good hus bandry to hack and scratch over the whole, as evidence of his title. He may cultivate well those parts which are naturally most fertile, and suffer the rest to remain wild, or, having cleared a part, lay it down to permanent pasture, which will yield him an annual profit, without requiring much labor. The climate and soil of the United States are adapted to the cultivation of Indian corn, which the climate of Great Britain is not. This entirely and very advantageously supersedes the field culture of the horse-bean, one of the most common fallow crops in that island. Root husbandry, or the raising of roots for the pur pose of feeding cattle, is likewise of less importance in the United States than in Great Britain. The winters are so severe in the northern section of the Union, that turnips can rarely be fed on the ground, and all sorts of roots are with more difficulty preserved and dealt out to stock, in this country, than in those which possess a milder climate. Besides, hay is more easily made from grass in the United States than in Great Britain, owing to the season for hay-making being gener ally more dry, and the sun more powerful. There are many other circumstances which favor the American farmer, and render his situation more eligible than that of the European. He is generally the owner as well as the occupier of the soil which he cultivates ; is not hurthened with tithes; his taxes are light, and the product of his labors will command more of the necessaries, comforts and innocent luxuries of life. In the early part of the century, a periodical pub cation, the American Farmer, was established at Baltimore, and still another, the New England Farmer, in Boston. Men of talent, wealth and enterprise have distinguished themselves by their laborious and liberal efforts for the improvement of American husbandry. Merino sheep were imported, as well as the most celebrated breeds of British cattle, and there prevailed a general disposition among all men of intelligence and high standing in the community, to promote the prosperity of American agriculture. We shall conclude with a few brief notices of prom inent benefits and improvements which modern science has contributed to American agriculture in the early part of the century, which will not be uninteresting. The husbandman of anti quity, as well as those of the middle ages, were destitute of many advantages enjoyed by the modern cultivator. Neither the practical nor the theoretical agriculturists of those periods had any correct knowledge of geology, mineralogy, chem istry, botany, vegetable physiology or natural philosophy; but these sciences have given the modern husbandman the command of important agents, elements and principles, of which the ancients bad no idea. The precepts of their writers were comformable to their experience ; but the rationale of the practices they prescribed they could not, and rarely attempted to, explain. Nature's most simple modes of operation were to them inexplicable, and their ignorance of causes often led to erroneous calculations with regard to effects. We are indebted to modern science for the following, among other improvements: A correct knowledge of the nature and prop erties of manures— mineral, animal and vege table; the best modes of applying them, and the particular crops for which • particular sorts of manures are best suited. The method of using all manures of animal and vegetable origin while fresh, before the sun, air and rain, or other moisture has robbed them of their most valuable properties. It was formerly the practice to place barn-yard manure in layers or masses for the purpose of rotting, and turning it over frequently with the plow or spade, till the whole had be come destitute of almost all its original fertilizing substances, and deteriorated in quality almost as much as it was reduced in quantity. The knowledge and means of chemically analyzing soils by which we can ascertain their constituent parts, and thus learn what substances are wanted to increase their fertility. The introduction in England of root husbandry, the raising of tur nips, mangel-wurzel, etc., extensively, by field husbandry, for feeding cattle, by which.. a given quantity of land may be made to produce much more nutritive matter than if it were occupied by grain or grass crops, and the health as well as the thriving of the animals in the winter season greatly promoted. Laying down lands to grass, either for pasture or mowing, with a greater variety of grasses, and with kinds adapted to a greater variety of soils; such as orchard-grass for dry land; foul meadow-grass for very wet land; timothy or herds'-grass for stiff, clayey soils, etc. The substitution of fallow crops (or such crops as require cultivation and stirring of the ground while the plants are growing) in the place of naked fallows, in which the land is allowed to remain without yielding any profitable product in order to renew its fertility. Fields may be so foul with weeds as to require a fallow, but not what is too often understood by that term in this country. In England, when a farmer was com pelled to fallow a field, he let the weeds grow into blossom and then turned them down; in America, a fallow meant a field where the pro duce is a crop of weeds running to seed, instead of a crop of grain. Again, the art of breeding the best animals and the best vegetables, by a judicious selection of individuals to propagate from. These improvements, with others too numerous to be here specified, have rendered the agriculture of the early part of the century very different from that of the middle ages when it had sunk far below the degree of perfection which it had reached among the Romans. In relation to the difficulties experienced in advanc ing agricultural art in the United States, it is well known that the earliest settlers found the country a, wilderness, with many varieties of climate and soil, of which they were entirely ignorant, and to which the knowledge they had obtained in the mother country did not apply. Thus, they had to contend with the innumerable obstacles, such as the wilderness of nature, their ignorance of the climate, the hostility of the In dians, the depredations of wild beasts, the diffi culty and expense of procuring seeds, farming implements and superior stock. These various difficulties are quite sufficient to explain the slow progress they made in the way of improve ment. For many years agriculture was in an exceedingly backward and depressed condition. Stocks and tools were poor, and there were obstacles and prejudices against any innovations in the established routine of practice. This state of things continued for many years with very little change. Jared Eliot, a clergyman of Connecticut, one of the earliest agricultural writers of America; published the first of a series of valuable essays on Field Husbandry, in but with this and a few other exceptions, no real efforts were made to improve farming until after the revolution, when the more settled state of the country and the gradual increase of population, began to impress the intrinsic import ance of the subject upon the minds of a few enlightened men. They sought by associated effort to awaken an interest in the subject, and spread abroad valuable information. The South Carolina Agricultural Society was established iu 1784, and still exists, and the Philadelphia Society for the Improvement of Agriculture, established in the same year, and a similar association in New York in 1791, incorporated in 1798, and the Massachusetts Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, established in 1792, were active in their field of labor, and all accomplished import ant results. The correspondence at this period between Sir John Sinclair and Washington, shows how anxious was the father of his country to promote the highest interests of the people by the improvement of agriculture. But all the efforts of the learned, and all the investigations of the scientific, prove comparatively unavailing, unless the people themselves—the actual workers of the soil—are prepared to receive and profit by their teachings. Many years elapsed before the habit of reading became sufficiently common among the masses of the actual tillers of the soil, to justify an expectation that any profit would arise from the annual publication of the transactions of the several societies. The improvements proposed fell dead upon the people. who rejected book farming as impertinent and useless, and knew as little of the chemistry of agriculture as of the problems of astronomy. Such has been the increase of intelligence and the growth of liberal ideas among all classes of men during the last half century, both in this country and Great Britain, that we, at this dis tance of time, can with difficulty realize the extent of the prejudices which blinded the eyes of the people of those days. The farmer who ventured to make experiments, to strike out new paths of practice, or to adopt new modes of culture, subjected himself to the ridicule of a whole neighborhood. For many years, there fore, the same routine of farm labor had been pursued in the older settlements, the son planting just as many acres of corn as his father did, in the old of the moon, using the same number of oxen to plow, and getting in his crops on the same day, after having hoed them the same number of times as his father and grandfather. So all farm practices were merely traditional ; no country or town agricultural societies existed to stimulate careful effort through competition. There were no journals devoted to the spread of agricultural knowledge, and the mental energies of the farmer lay dormant. The stock of the farm was such as one might expect to find under such circumstances; the sheep were small, and ill cared for in the winter, and the size of cattle generally was but little more than half the aver age of the present time. The value of manures was little regarded; the rotation of crops was scarcely thought of; the introduction even, of new and labor-saving machinery, was sternly resisted and ridiculed by the American farmers of that day as well as by the English laborers. It was long before the horse-rake was brought into use in opposition to the prejudices it encountered. It was equally long before the horse-power th•esh ing-machine was adopted In some parishes of Great Britain, even so late as 1830, the laborers actually went about destroying every machine they could find. Now, on the contrary, the use of the flail is a drudgery to which very few are willing to submit, and steam-power has In many instances been substituted for the horse, while new and improved implements of all kinds are sought to an extent unprecedented in the history of agriculture. Changes are gradually made every where, and the success which attends the intro duction of new implements disarms prejudice. Within the last half century, chemistry, the indispensable handmaid of agriculture, has grown with great rapidity, and in each new dis covery some new truth applicable to practical agriculture has come to light, while willing experimenters have labored in the field to prove the truth or falsity of the theories proposed, and thus the well established facts from which the science of agriculture is derived, and the sound theories deduced from these facts, are constantly increasing in number. The substitution of animal for manual power, and yet more, the saving of animal power by the substitution of natural and mechanical forces, are the surest indications of improvement. From the changes which have grown up in these respects, and from the more constant use of chemical analysis to determine the qualities of soils and manures within the last fifty years, we may safely assert that the progress made during that period, or within the last twenty years, is wholly unparalleled. To come down now to our own day, in comparing -our husbandry. with European, we find that in all the older settled portions of the United States, the processes of agriculture will now compare favorably with those of any country on the globe, in the perfect adaptation of means to the end. The American farmer does not raise so great an average crop per acre as the English or the Bel gian or the Holland farmer; the reason of this lies in the cheapness of the land, rendering it easier to work a larger area somewhat superfi cially, than to put a considerable expense on a smaller one. The fact that the conformation of the land, especially in the West, admits of work ing almost entirely by the use of machinery, is the reason that a large area per capita may he economically cultivated. It is this that has made the West to teem with abundant crops of Indian corn and the other cereal grains; that has enabled her farmers to produce the immense herds of cattle, droves of swine, and flocks of sheep. It has made this magnificent agricultural region to teem with every crop that may be pro dneed in a temperate climate, and before which the productions of ancient Egypt, so much vaunted, sinks into utter insignificance. It has indeed made the West the granary of the world. To show something of this we give a statement showing our agricultural exports up to 1875, in periods of five years, extending back over fifty years, the figures being the average per annum for each period. These exports are divided into five classes : animals and their products, bread stuffs, cotton (including its manufactures), wood, and miscellaneous products. Necessarily the ex tension of raw materials, as manufactured meat products, lumber, vegetable oils, must be con sidered, and the direct manufacture of a single and uncombined product of the farm, to render it available for exportation, was deemed for this purpose an agricultural product : The advance has been most remarkable ; progress without a faltering step, except in the period following the great financial depression which resulted from the great monetary crash of 1837, when the exports of cotton greatly declined. The average for the last of these ten periods is nearly ten times that of the first. As showing the immense proportions to which agriculture has grown, we present a general summary, showing the estimated quantities, number of acres, and aggregate value of the principal crops of the farm in 1879: What has brought all this about? It is the com plete and general system of education in our country by which every child is enabled to glean current facts relating to his profession as fast as they come up. It is the perfection of ma chinery and the improvement of stock; this added to a fertile soil has enabled the agriculture of to-day to keep pace with the growing events of a teeming and increasing population. It has enabled the farmer of the United States not only to supply the demand at home, but to send abroad yearly the vast surplus of every kind which is accumulated from year to year. Science has enabled the farmer to plow his ground, sow his seed, cultivate his crops, harvest his grain, and make it ready for the stook, thresh, winnow, and send it to the market by the mere act of superintending machines, which do the work like so many creatures of intelligence. He mows his grass, makes it into hay, rakes it into windrows, cocks or loads it directly on the wagon, stacks or puts it in the barn, and even does the heavy work of feeding, entirely by machinery. Water is pumped for his stock and carried into his house by the agency of wind and steam. He digs drains, lays tile, makes roads, subsoils and trench-plows his land; and plants, hauls, and grinds his grain; prepares fodder for, and feeds it to his stock; pumps, saws, and threshes; spades and hoes; loads and unloads; stacks his hay and straw, and does an infinity of other work besides, by the power of automatic sinews of iron and steel How? By the power of mind applied to the direction of material farces; by true knowledge of cause and effect ; in a word, by science. And yet, if asked the ques tion to-day, it is highly probable that a majority would laugh at any intimate relation between science and agriculture. And yet modern agri culture rests upon all science, chemistry being its corner stone and intelligence the power which applies it to agriculture.