Tin: DANK AGES AND THE AGES. The deterioration of Roman agriculture was accel by the overthrow of the Ronian Empire. The conquering nations had advanced but little beyond the pastoral stage. During the following period of the Dark Ages the two influences work ing for the benefit of agriculture in Western Eu rope were the Saracen in Spain and the religious houses in the other countries. The Saracens irri gated and tilled with untiring industry. They introduced the plants of Asia and Africa ; culti vated rice, cotton, and sugar, and covered the rocks of Southern Spain with fruitful vines. In general, throughout Western Europe, land was eheap, and many worthless tracts were given to the Church. In some of the religious orders la bor with the hands was imposed upon the mem bers. They studied the works of the Roman writers upon agriculture, and soon had the best cultivated lands in those countries through which their influence extended. Charlemagne encour aged the planting of vineyards and or cha•ds. On the whole, the Crusades helped the agriculture of Western Europe. In the lat ter part of the Aliddle Ages the people of low countries of Western Europe ea me to he as dis tinguished for their agriculture as for their com merce and manufactures. plowed in green crops; the people of Holland developed dairy ing; the Flemings gained the reputation of being the oldest practical farmers. Also in the plain of Northern Italy, watered by the l'o, agri culture was in an advanced condition. A large part of it, of great natural fertility, drew forth the praises of Polybins, who visited it about fifty years after it came into the hands of the Romans. in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, under the influence of irri gation, the region became a garden, supporting a large population and exporting grain. In the
England of the same period the agriculture showed alternations of indolence and bustle, of feasting and semi-starvation, In August, 1317, wheat was twelve times as high in price as in the following September. Rye was the breadstuff of the peasantry. Little manure was used. Oxen, not horses, were used for teams. In the four teenth century serfdom disappeared from Eng land. and the tenant farmer became established. "Between 13S9 and 1444 the wages of agri enitural laborers doubled; harvests were plenti ful; beef, mutton, pork became their food; sumptuary laws against extravagance of dress and diet attest their prosperity" (Prothero). Laborers without food could earn a bushel of wheat in two days and a half; of rye in a day and a half.
By the beginning of modern history, the fruitful lands of Western Asia and Southeast ern Europe, swept by wars and desolated by quest, had been plai.ed the ban of the Turk. The conquest of the Moors in Spain and their subsequent expulsion caused an injury to the agriculture of the peninsula \•dell has not !Well repaired. The diseovery of the New World showed two grades of agriculture carried on by those who had never seen the horse and were practically without domes' iv animals. Even the careful tillage of the aneient Peruvian had no influence upon Europe and little upon the Amor ica of succeeding centuries. The great contribu tion of America to the world's agriculture was the three plants, the potato, tobacco, and Indian corn or maize. In the region north of the labor of planting and caring for the scanty crops was performed by the women, who broke the ground with the rudest possible implements.