AGRICULTURE (Lat. ewer, a field, and eolo, I till)is the art of rearing those plants and animals that are best suited to supply the wants of man. Man has found the earth, in almost every clime, covered with vegetation, yet this often yields little that he can use. The spontaneous growth of nature affording but a limited quantity of food, he at first attempts to supply the deficiency by capturing the wild animals, which often feed upon what is unsuited for his sustenance. Sometimes, however, the most fertile lands under luxuriant forests, or other natural vegetation, only support a small number of animals. In the most favorable circumstances, a given area of territory cannot maintain many of the human family, so long as they depend upon the natural vegetation or on the chase. It is only after those plants which yield man an abundant supply of food are selected and made the object of cultivation, that population augments, and civilization takes its rise.
Man has selected a great variety of plants for cultivation to afford him food and cloth ing. In n. lat., wheat, barley, oats, rye and the potato form the chief plants from which he derives subsistence. These crops are most productive when grown in summer in the temperate climates of the earth, being unsuited to the heats of the torrid zone. Their geographical limits, however, are greatly extended by growing them as winter crops on the bordersof, and even within the tropics. In these regions, however, rice, maize, millet, and other grains become far more productive of food than the already mentioned cereals are in high latitudes, as they flourish during the heats of summer. Where heat and moisture are almost perennial in the tropics, the banana, the bread-fruit tree, and other herbaceous plants and trees, are most productive of human food. A'short histori cal outline of the A. of different parts of the world will exhibit the chief elements that regulate the practices of the husbandman.
The early civilization of Eqpt claims for it the first notice in a passing outline of the chief systems of A. The teeming population that existed in ancient times in the narrow valley of the Nile, the large standing army which was maintained, the extraordinary works of and architecture still visible in our day, and the exportation of corn to other nations, indicate an advanced state of the art of A. Rain is a rare phenomenon
in upper Egypt, and fertility is only maintained by the waters of the Nile, which are subject to annual floods. The risings and ebbings are as regular now as they were iu the days of Herodotus; and the agricultural systems are also in a great measure the same. The inundation which, unless prevented by embankments, covers the whole land, occurs at the hottest season. As the waters retire in October, the land is sown with what are there styled winter crops, consisting of wheat, barley, lentils, beans, flax, lupines, chick-pease, etc. All these crops require no further watering, as the moisture which the soil has imbibed during the inundation is sufficient to bring them to maturity about the end of April, or even a month sooner in upper Egypt. Only one crop in the year is grown upon most of the inundated lands. But on those lands which are protected from the inundation, three crops a year may be raised by means of artificial watering. Few of the plants used as winter crops can be grown in summer in Egypt. The plants adapted for summer consist of rice (largely grown in the Delta), durra, millet, maize, sesame, melons, onions; they are sown from April to August, and of several of them two crops in the season ripen under the cloudless sky of Egypt. A vast amount of manual labor and animal power is expended in watering the ground for the summer crops. The peasants use the shadoof for the purpose, which it a simple contrivance, used in drawing water, over a large portion of the east. The Persian wheel, driven by oxen, is largely employed: so much so, that about 50,000 of these machines are atpresent in use in the valley of the Nile. Besides these crops, cotton, indigo and sugar-cane are now cultivated to a small ex tent. When the waters rest long on the laud, it answers all the ends of a fallow, by extir pating the land-weeds and soil. The ground, in such cases, requires no further culture than treading in the seed by animals, or slightly scratching the surface with bushes. On the other hand, the summer crops require a great deal of tendiricr, both in cultivating and watering the soil. The diminution of the population in Egypt has in some measure deprived the country of the means of its former advanced state of A.; nor is its present political condition at all likely to had to much improvement.