Agriculture

ful: but Bos primigenius (Aurochs) is the only one which exists in a semi-wild condition in the wild cattle of Chillingham Park, Northumberland, Cadzow Forest, Lanarkshire, and in parts of Russia and the Caucasus. Unimproved races of sheep are generally of varied color; but the efforts of Jacob to breed sheep to particular colors afford evidence that cattle and sheep were bred with care in the earliest times. Charred grains of wheat and barley have been found in Switzerland on the site of ancient lake dwellings, and well-preserved grains in mummies of great antiquity, ears of maize in the huacas of the ancient Peruvian Indians, and the bones of domesticated animals have been recovered from the prehistoric kitchen-middens in Denmark and elsewhere.

The earliest definite knowledge of agriculture that we have is found in the history of ancient Egypt. It appears that the conditions there were very much what existed in Europe in later times. The sovereign, priesthood, and military caste were the owners of the land and live stock, and the people, so far as we know, were content to do the work. This has been the record in nearly all the ancient nations. The Egyptians possessed domesticated animals cattle, sheep, goats and swine-and they produced wheat (bearded), barley (6-rowed), durra (Sorghum vulgare, var.), and millet. They cultivated and irrigated the soil, using wooden ploughs and hoes, and also rude harrows and rollers. They made threshing-floors in the open fields and used donkeys and oxen to tread out the grain. Durra seed were removed with a rude comb. They likewise cultivated flax for its fibre from very remote times, while cotton was grown in India as early as 1500 B.C. The Egyptians grew lentils, lupines (Lupinus ternis), onions, garlic and radishes, grapes, olives, figs, pomegranates, and dates. They also cultivated watermelons and the castor-oil plant. The list shows that they must have been zealous husbandmen, and that they enjoyed a high degree of civilization. When we consider that gardening in England dates from the 17th century and that salads, carrots, and other edible roots were known as articles of food before the reign of Henry VIII., we can then understand what progress had been made in agriculture in ancient Egypt.

In those early times Palestine was also a rich agricultural country, but it may be assumed that their knowledge of agriculture came from Egypt. The productions were wheat, barley, millet,

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the grape and olive, and flocks of sheep. The land was rich and was held under more favorable conditions than in Egypt, and the farmers must have been good tillers of the soil. Greece also owed much to Egypt, for her products were similar, though she produced a greater variety of fruit and vegetables. Greek writers, however, have but little to say of agriculture, and we know far less of their husbandry than we do of Egyptian and Roman.

Of Roman agriculture a volume might be written, and every word of it would be intensely interesting. The Romans were the pioneer agriculturists of Europe, they loved their herds and flocks and well-tilled fields, and even in their decay, when corrupted with wealth and vice, they turned to their country estates with an affection that cannot be mistaken. And what is equally noteworthy, they carried their agriculture with them wherever they went, into all their conquests. They introduced wheat into Great Britain with so much success that it soon became an article of export from that island. They also transplanted the vine from Sicily into France. They grew wheat, barley, millet, oats, and rye; alfalfa and vetches for fodder; hemp and flax for fibre; beans, turnips, and lupines. They had a great variety of fruit, and they knew how to make good use of all these bounties of the earth. They were skilled in raising horses, cattle, sheep, mules, swine, and poultry, and made cheese and butter. That they were good husbandmen is shown by their careful cultivation, the use of some sort of rotation the land being allowed to lie fallow after grain-and by the use of irrigation and land drainage. They used the sickle and flail, and they also used the treadingfloor for threshing grain. · Although much that they taught the world was lost when the Goths and Vandals overran Europe, the progress they made in agriculture and the dignity they attached to it must stand to their credit through all time.

During the middle ages, agriculture in Europe owes its preservation to two agencies - the Saracens in Spain, and the Church estates. The barbarians had trampled out nearly every vestige of Roman husbandry, and the feudal barons were more interested in devastating their neighbors' fields than in cultivating their own. The Saracens, however, introduced various plants from Asia and Africa. they cultivated rice, cotton, and sugar-cane, and they used irrigation. They brought Spain under a degree of cultivation then un

Agriculture

known in Europe. Many of the church estates were also noted for good management. At a time when war and robbery were favorite occupations, they taught the arts of peace and preserved habits of industry.

When the revival in agriculture came it appeared in northern Italy, where the waters of the Po traverse one of the most fertile regions of Europe, and in the Low Countries, where the industrious Dutch developed dairyfarming and the Flemings became famous for their knowledge of farming and gardening. Grain was exported from northern Italy during the 13th and 14th centuries and in England agricultural conditions were greatly improved in the 14th century by the extinction of serfdom and the appearance of the tenant farmer. Progress may not have been continuous and uniform, but still there was progress. The Saracens were expelled from Spain, and their arts and industries went with them. The Turks overran Western Asia and Southeastern Europe. In England periods of prosperity and plenty were followed by periods of adversity and semi-starvation. Rye and oats were still the food of the poor, wheat that of the rich. In England the cultivators of the soil were crowded together in miserable little hamlets, while the greater part of the country was reserved as pasture. But still there was progress. The discovery of America brought in three new products tobacco, maize, and the potato-and the last two became in time the food of the poor with rye and

oats.

The records of the 16th century in England show marked prosperity in British agriculture, because of the greater restrictions on the rights of common and the extension of land enclosures. Hops were introduced from Holland and wheat became an article of export. About the middle of the century temporary restrictions on this export caused great distress and turned the cultivated fields into pasture land, but the mistake was soon corrected. In the 17th century the cultivation of garden vegetables began, and turnips and red clover were introduced from Flanders, which practically revolutionized agriculture in Great Britain. As food for cattle and sheep they gave a new impetus to stock-raising, and they also led to the adoption of the Norfolk four-course rotation which so greatly improved cultivation. The introduction of timothy and orchard grass from America about 1760 likewise added to the stock-raisers' re

sources.

Agriculture

During the 18th and 19th centuries agriculture in Europe has shown steady progress. The influence of the discovery of America has modified conditions to some extent but on the whole it has been beneficial. France has become a great wheat-producing country as also Austria-Hungary and Russia. Improved conditions have arisen in European Turkey, the Balkan states, and in Spain. Germany and France were slow in breaking the shackles of feudalism, but they have become great agricultural producers. Italy is returning to her old estate, Holland and Belgium have brought tillage of the soil and dairy-farming to a marvellous degree of perfection, the Scandinavians have become prosperous dairymen and grain-producers, and Portugal has become one great vineyard and garden. Great Britain has had the difficult problem to solve of providing cheaper food for a large manufacturing population, which she accomplished in 1846 by the abolition of protective duties on grain. This has compelled the readjustment of her agricultural industries, which, with the aid of modern science, has been partially successful. With the aid of science the beet-sugar industry has been developed on a vast scale in Europe and is now being rapidly built up in certain regions in the United States. the total sugar product of the world more than half is beetsugar. The influence of Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, South America, and Eastern Asia is now felt in many directions, and is slowly readjusting the agricultural industries of the world. Brazil practically controls the coffee market of the world, though excellent coffee can be produced elsewhere-e.g.,__in Porto Rico and Hawaii. The wheat, wool, and meat products of Argentina, Australia, and South Africa, and the rice of India and Eastern Asia, are competitors with which the farmers of the United States and Canada must reckon. The increasing population of the civilized world must have cheap food-stuffs, and it is the mission of agriculture everywhere to provide them.

Of

AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. The history of American agriculture is practically a continuation of what the first colonists brought over from the old world, modified to meet new conditions, and reinforced from time to time by fresh importations of European emigrants and practice. The early colonists brought with them the customs and practices of the mothercountry, a great part of which they were obliged to discard when

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confronted by conditions entirely new to them. They came from long - settled, thickly - populated countries; they had before them a forest-covered region of unknown extent, occupied only by savages. The climate was new to them, and there were puzzling variations in the fertility of the soil; nothing could help them but experience, and that they had to gain. They had no markets for their products, for the motherland was far away and could be reached only by long voyages in the small sailing vessels of that day. Their colonies were also separated by pathless forests, and at first they could not do much to help each other. They found the natives cultivating maize and tobacco, and these at once became their staple productions-the one for food, the other for export. They had brought out from the old country, also, seeds for the fields and gardens they proposed to cultivate, and in this way the new world received many of the productions that were destined to be sources of incalculable wealth to its people. They brought with them, also, horses, cattle, sheep, swine, and poultry-all of them unknown to the new world.

The agricultural operations of these early settlers were simple and their methods were crude. They planted to supply themselves with food, and they rarely raised more than they needed. For many long years they had no markets, except for their tobacco, and their most necessary wants were supplied largely through their own ingenuity. Under such conditions only a very primitive type of agriculture was possible during the first century of our colonial life. Later on the development of cotton production in the South and the accidental discovery that rice could be grown there, added two new products to our exports, while the commercial enterprise of New England sailors was instrumental in developing new markets for the products of our fields, forests and fisheries.

As the American settlers began their westward movement they found vast treeless plains with a deep alluvial soil-one of the richest agricultural regions of the world. The result was that the sons and grandsons of the Eastern pioneers and the foreign immigrants became great producers of wheat, maize, hay, cattle, sheep, and swine, and in time their food products found markets in every part of the world and brought them great wealth. And all this without resort to any other assistance than the natural fertility of the soil and the use of labor-saying machinery, supplemented by unequalled facilities for internal

Agriculture

Al

transportation and the enjoyment of a large and constantly growing home market. The American people have been generous consumers as well as large producers, and this has been an important element in their phenomenal growth. In the South the conditions of soil and climate changed but little in the westward movement of population. though the plantation system and slavery tended to give greater permanence to their settlements, the same impulse existed there to move westward into new territory. This tendency was a serious drawback to the development of systematic and thorough agriculture in the United States up to the last half of the 19th century, when it became more difficult to obtain virgin lands. For these reasons the primitive methods of early days have continued, and may yet be found in the far West, on the frontiers of civilization. Even Iwithin the last few years thousands of these restless pioneers have flowed across the boundary line into the great Canadian northwest in search of new wheat lands, where profitable results can be secured without resort to the high tillage and fertilizers now necessary on the partially exhausted lands of the East. The system has been essentially wasteful and destructive in its character and promises to entail serious problems and burdens upon future generations, but it has been unavoidable.

The last half of the 19th century witnessed a new era in American agriculture. Some progress had been made early in the century by the introduction of pure-bred stock, in plant-breeding, and in improved tillage, but it had made comparatively slight impression upon the vigorous, restless life of the country. There was a fine scorn for the 'bookfarmer' among the men who could raise phenomenal crops of wheat, maize and cotton from virgin lands. When the lands of the older states began to show signs of exhaustion, an interest in better farming methods came into existence. The comparatively new state of Michigan took the lead by providing for agricultural instruction in her constitution and by creating an agricultural school, which was opened as early as 1857, followed two years later by the older states of Maryland and Pennsylvania. From these beginnings have sprung a remarkable interest in agricultural study, and there is now not a state in the Union that does not possess a well-equipped agricultural college and experiment station, the latter partly supported by a national appropriation of $15,000 per annum for each state

Agriculture

and Territory under the 'Hatch Act' of 1887. Some of the agricultural colleges also maintain systematic home courses of reading for the instruction of farmers, and bulletins are issued from all the stations giving the results of their experiments. Agricultural improvement was also encouraged by President Roosevelt's appointment, on June 8, 1908, of a commission on the conservation of the national resources. These efforts are steadily effecting important improvements in agricultural methods. The abolition of slavery in the South has resulted in an immense increase in the cotton product. Greater care and attention is given to tillage and the use of fertilizers, and an extraordinary development has been attained in the utilization of cotton seed in the manufacture of oil, cattle food and fertilizer-agencies that are doing almost as much for the industry as Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin.

The production of maize undoubtedly ranks first among American agricultural industries. It is produced in every state, and compared with wheat has double its acreage and quadruple its product. It furnishes a valuable food for man and domestic animals, and its succulent stalks and leaves supply coarse forage for cattle. The high estimation in which wheat is held as an article of human food naturally gives it first place among the agricultural products of the United States, though it ranks second in acreage and third in product. It has always been a principal article of export and must continue so. The production of wheat has been influenced more directly by the invention of labor-saving machinery, perhaps, than that of any other product. It was estimated in 1896 that the amount of human labor required to produce one bushel of wheat was ten minutes, valued at 3 cents, whereas, in 1830, before the era of modern farm machinery, it required three hours and three minutes, valued at 174 cents. The application of steam or other motive Dower to the work of ploughing, reaping and threshing on the great wheat farms of the West, has reduced enormously the manual labor element in production, and has proportionately decreased the cost. The tendency is, therefore, to drive the small producer out of the business, except for personal or local food supply. By improved methods of culture and the introduction or breeding or drought-resistant varieties the growing of wheat has in recent years been rapidly extended in the semi-arid regions. The large increase in the production of oats, which has ranked

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second in product in the last two census returns, seems to imply that this cereal is taking the place of wheat in those states where the production of the latter is no longer profitable.

Among the other staple productions, measured by their amount, special mention may be made of potatoes, hay and forage, barley, tobacco, sweet potatoes, rye, flaxseed and rice. Tobacco and rice have shown in recent years a rapid increase, as also hay and forage and barley. There was also a steady increase during the last half century in the number of dairy cows, of other neat cattle, of horses, mules, and swine. Although the number of sheep has nearly doubled since 1850, it has considerably diminished since the census of 1880. The inference is that the small farmer has reached the conclusion that there is an advantage in keeping stock on his farm, other than the price at which they can be sold. The transformation of unsalable or low-priced forage and grain into beef and pork, and of hay, straw and various residues into manure, are both important items in the balance sheet of the small farm. The introduction of the Spanish merino early in the 18th century gave a strong impetus to wool production. Land was then less valuable and population comparatively sparse, and woolgrowing provided a certain income where nothing else was available. Better tillage and more profitable industries during the last half century, however, have changed these primitive conditions and sheep-raising is now passing through its period of readjustment. The demand for lamb and mutton as food, which is constantly increasing, is now a much larger factor than formerly in fixing the profits of sheep-raising.

was

Probably no industry of the present time is more highly specialized and scientifically managed than dairy-farming. The enormous daily consumption of milk in the cities, and the everincreasing demand for butter, cheese, cream, and condensed milk, for export as well as for home consumption, render it one of the safest and most lucrative of industries. The means employed to meet this demand is shown by the exceptional interest which has been developed all over the country, not only in the quantity and value of the product, but in a scientific study of the business. By the 1905 census there were 8,926 factories in the United States devoted to the production of cheese, butter, and condensed milk, having an aggregate capital of $47,255,556, employing 15,557

Agriculture

wage-earners, paying $8,412,957 for wages and $142,920,277 for materials, and yielding combined products valued at $168,182,789. În 1908 there were 21,194,000 dairy cows in the United States, valued at $650,057,000, Iowa leading in number, with 1,555,000. The exports of butter, cheese, and milk in the fiscal year 1907-08 were: Butter, 6,463,061 lb., valued at $1,407,962; cheese, 8,439,031 lb., valued at $1,092,053; and milk to the value of $2,455,186. The imports were: Butter, 780,608 lb., valued at $182,897; cheese, 32,530,030 lb., valued at $5,586,706, and milk to the value of $11,496. The returns show that since 1890 the number of factories had been almost doubled, the capital nearly tripled, and the output more than doubled. The measure of appreciation in which the industry is held is shown in the careful breeding of dairy herds, the skilled attention given to their care and feeding, the scientific experiments carried on in the state experiment stations and agricultural colleges, and the thorough training in dairy farming given in the latter. One of the interesting features in the manufacture of butter and cheese in the United States and Canada is the large percentage of factories managed for joint account, or on the ccöperative plan. It is a system full of pessibilities for the thrifty farmer and might be applied to other industries.

Although sugar production in the United States is an old and important industry, it is not keeping pace with those already mentioned. It has received every possible encouragement from a protective tariff, but it has been restricted in locality. The aggregate value of sugar, mclasses and syrup made from sugar-cane in continental United States 1905 was $277,285,449. The produc tion of sugar beets in the United States is a comparatively new industry and is making encouraging progress. The sugar beet now furnishes a large proportion of the world's sugar supply. The 1905 census reported 51 beetsugar manufacturing plants, employing a capital of $55,923,459, paying $14,486,876 fcr materials, and having a combined output valued at $24,393,794. These two crops occupied very nearly a half-million acres of land, and the value of their manufactured preducts only slightly exceeded the value of small fruits produced on 309,770 acres.

Rotation of Crops.-The maintenance of fertility in soils is also secured by proper rotation or succession of crops. This is due to the difference in the demands made upon the soil by different crops, the methods of cultivation

Agriculture

called into play, the fertilization given to certain crops in the rotation, and the residues left by the roots and stubble of such crops as clover and other legumes, which gather nitrogen from the air. Fallowing, often introduced in a system of rotation, exposes the soil to atmospheric changes which dissolve the mineral matter in the soil, and encourage nitrification, with great benefit to succeeding crops. The old threefield course of the early Teutons was obligatory in Anglo-Saxon times. In the ancient institution of the 'mark,' or area marked out and appropriated by each gemeinde or village community, the arable mark was divided into three fields, one of which was fallow, one winter corn (wheat), and one summer corn (oats or barley).

This appears to have been the original form of the English rotation of fallow-wheat-oats, or fallow wheat - beans which was general at an early period. According to Thorold Rogers, arable land in the 13th century was generally half in fallow and half in corn. The system of bare fallowing once in two or three years continued, especially in the three-course form, until the close of the 17th century, when turnips began to form a regular crop. As turnip husbandry extended, greater at

tention was devoted to the winter feeding of cattle, and this gave rise to the general improvement in livestock which marked the later portion of the 18th century. The Norfolk four-course rotation of roots, barley, clover and wheat became, with modifications, the modern English system of cropping. It is varied by allowing the clover or seeds to remain down for two or more years, giving rise to five and six course rotations, and by the introduction of other crops. Prof. I. B. Roberts ad

vises the use of a two-course rotation, such as wheat and clover, to free the land from noxious weeds, and also a three-course rotation on light, fairly-fertile land, such as clover, potatoes, and wheat, where one ploughing will serve for the three crops. The system of sheepfolding on root and fodder crops has proved of the first importance in arable farming on light lands, and has greatly added to the fertility of the soil.

See the articles on special agricultural subjects, such as FERTIL IZERS; IMPLEMENTS, AGRICULTURAL; STOCK RAISING, etc. For statistics see article UNITED STATES. See also the special bulletins issued by the Department of Agriculture and the State experiment stations, and the many excellent agricultural journals published in Great Britain, Canada and the United States.

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For treatment of scientific agriculture, The Rothamsted Memoirs are invaluable to progressive farmers on both sides of the Atlantic. Early ideas on agriculture in the American colonies may be found in J. Eliot's Agricultural Essays (1760) and S. Deane's New England Farmer, or Georgical Dictionary (1797). Among the many recent publications may be mentioned: J. Periam's American Encyclopædia of Agriculture (1881), Wilcox and Smith's Cyclopedia of Agriculture (1904), Bailey and Miller's Encyclopædia of American Horticulture, 4 vols., (1900-2), E. B. Voorhees's First Principles of Agriculture (1896), and Fertilizers (1898), L. H. Bailey's The Principles of Agriculture (1898), I. B. Roberts's The Fertility of the Land (1897), S. W. Johnson's How Crops Grow (1868) and How Crops Feed (1870), J. Harris's Talks on Manures (1878), F. W. Sempers's Manures; How to Make and How to Use Them (1893), F. H. Storer's Agriculture in Some of its Relations to Chemistry (1897), H. Snyder's Chemistry of Plant and Animal Life (1903), H. W. Conn's Agricultural Bacteriology (1901), F. H. King's The Soil (1895), M. Miles's StockBreeding (1878), H. Stewarts's Shepherd's Manual (1878), H. P. Armsby's Manual of Cattle Feeding (1890), W. A. Henry's Feeds and Feeding (1898), J. H. Jordan's The Feeding of Animals (1901), H. H. Wing's Milk and its Prod

ucts

(1895), J. W. Decker's Cheese Making (1900), F. H. King's Irrigation and Drainage (1899) and Physics of Agriculture (1901), M. Miles's Land Drainage (1897), C. G. Elliott's Practical Farm Drainage (1884), G. E. Waring, Jr.'s, Report of the Massachusetts Drainage Commission (1886), and Sewerage and Land Drainage (1889), and Draining for Profit and Draining for Health (1867), Flint's One Hundred Years' Progress (1872). T. F. Hunt's Cereals in America (1905).

Agrigentum (Gr. Akragas), on the s. coast of Sicily, about 21 m. from the sea. It was a colony of Gela-itself a colony of Rhodesfounded about 580 B.C. It attained great wealth and splendor, and contained several temples, including those to Jupiter and to Concordia; ruins of the former, one of the most magnificent in Sicily, still survive. Among its rulers were the tyrant Phalaris, and Theron (488-472). It was destroyed by the Carthaginians in 406 B.C. Timoleon rebuilt and recolonized it in 340, but it suffered again in the Punic wars, and from 210 B.C. was subject to Rome. Between 828 and 1086 it was in the hands of the Saracens. Noted as the birthplace of Empedocles. See GIRGENTI.

Agrippina

Agrimony, a general name for rosaceous plants of the genus Agrimonia. There are several species in the United States, erect perennials, the larger species being characterized by pinnate leaves, with small leaf-segments placed between the larger leaves on the petiole. The flowers are yellow, small, and arranged in spicate racemes. The fruits are more or less top-shaped, with hooked bristles at the top. The tall, hairy agrimony (A. hirsuta) is as widely distributed in the woodlands of the United States as any of the species.

Agrippa I. and II. See HEROD. Agrippa, HEINRICH CORNELIUS, called also AGRIPPA VON NETTESHEIM (1486-1535), an eccentric German philosopher who professed alchemy and magic; author of De Incertitudine et Vanitate Scientiarum (1527) and De Occulta Philosophia (1531), See Henry Morley's Life of C. A grippa (1856).

Agrippa, MARCUS VIPSANIUS (63-12 B.C.), a man of obscure family, but raised to the highest position by his friend Octavius, afterwards the Emperor Augustus. He married Julia, Augustus's daughter, and had by her five children, one of whom, Agrippina, became the wife of Germanicus. He pacified Gaul in 38 B.C.; beat Sextus Pompeius in the naval battle at Naulochos, Sicily; was in command of Octavian's naval forces at Actium. After Octavian became emperor he did much for the beautifying of Rome. Pacified afterwards the revolted provinces, Gaul, Spain, and Pannonia. He was also a great patron of arts, literature, and science.

Agrippa, MENENIUS, Romar: consul (B.c. 502), conqueror of the Sabines and Samnites, reputed author of the fable of the Stomach and the Members (see Shakespeare's Coriolanus). He obtained certain modifications of the laws in favor of the plebs, and died in poverty after a life of public service (Livy, ii. 16, 32, 33).

Agrippina, THE ELDER, daughter of M. Vipsanius Agrippa and Julia, daughter of Augustus; wife of Germanicus, and mother of Caligula and the younger Agrippina. She was renowned for her noble character. Exiled by Tiberius to the island of Pandataria, she died there in 33 A.D. from starvation. Her statue in the Capitol Museum of Rome is one of the masterpieces of Roman sculpture.

Agrippina, THE YOUNGER, daughter of the above and Germanicus; married first to C. Domitius Ahenobarbus, by whom she had a son, afterwards the Emperor Nero, and then to the Emperor Claudius, whom she persuaded to adopt her son Nero, to the injury of his own son Britannicus, in 54 A.D. She had the emperor poisoned, and Nero succeeded to