Burlington hawk-eye. [volume] (Burlington, Iowa) 1845-185?, 1850-01-24
History Of Agriculture:

he origin OF agriculture was ascribed
by the ancients 10 fabulous heroes and he
roines /; by the Egyptians TO Osiris by the
Greeks TO Ceres and Triptolemus by the
Latius to Janus; and by the Chinese to
Chin-hong, successor to Fo-hi; but the
earliest correct account is from that Book
of books, which Divine wisdom exempts
from all mistakes. From this we learn
that the cultivation of the soil was the
primitive pursuit of man. God placed
Adam in Eden, to "till the ground" ito
dress and keep the garden;" but garden
in the proper acceptation of the term, is
only field which labor has highly cult
waited and taste embellished.
OF the descendants of our first parents,
Cain was 'liller Of the ground;' Noah
art among his posterityI, 81 IS they heta came a1's
down from Mount Ararat upon the plains
OF Assyria, and divided the earth among
them. Abraham and Lot had their re-
spective herdsmen and pasttjfes, Job had
oxen, asses, sheep, and camels, and SER
wants to keep them and Job sent to Egypt
to purchase corn Of his unknown Joseph.
Elijah found Elisha ploughing in the field
with twelve yoke of oxen. OF king Da-
vid's principal workmen, one had the
charge Of the field, the tilling of the
ground another, of the vineyard; and
Solomon, his son and successor, planted
orchards ard vineyards, and classed these
pursuits "among the delights Of the sons
Of men," We also read in the Scriptures
Of the various operations of watering,
ploushing, reaping, threshing, winnowing
( with the shovel, and with the fan or sieve;
Of digging hills with a mattock, and of
various agricultural productions, as corn,
oil, fruits, milk, honey, and butter.
On the settlement OF Canaan, each tribe
received its inheritance, and each head of
family his portion by lot and this he
held by absolute right; and If this primi-
tive system had been perpetuated, would
it not have prevented that inequality in
landed possessions, from which have re-
suited neglect Of cultivation, consequent
scarcity and starvation, which have given
sad distinction to the recent history Of
some transatlantic countries
Passing from these scenes of sacred as
socia,ion, did time permit, we might trace
the history of this noble art among the ma
tions Of antiquity. From Egypt, first in
arts and first in letters, it passed through
Phenicia to Greece, where it employed
the gifted mind Of a Democritus, Keno
phon, an Aristotle, Theophrastus, ard
Hesiod. From Greece it was waited on
the wave of emigration to the banks of the
Tiber, to Rome, mistress Of the world,
who planted it after her conqnests, in all
her colonies. Her cons,lls could WELD
the sword in war, and hold the plough in
peace. Her Cincinnatus returned in hon
or from the battle field to his farm. Her
Cato, himself farmer, the son of far
mer, retired daily from his legal pursuits
of the morning to his fields, "where, with
plain cloak over his shoulders in VIM
ter, and almost naked in Summer, he Ia
bored with his servants, till they had con-
cluded their tasks, after which he sat
down with them at table, eating the same
bread and drinking the same wine." The
Georges of her Virgil are compend Of
the most approved methods of cultivation
among the Greeks and Romans, and are
worthy of the high rank which they hold
in the educational systems of our day.
Upon the fall of the Roman Empire,
agriculture slumbered during the night Of
the dark ages, till the star of the Reform
alton dawned upon the world. Then the
seed which the ancient Romans carried in
to Britain, and that also which they scat
tered on their way thither in other coun-
tries, sprang UP and bore fruit. But it
was not until the middle of the sixteenth
century, that the first English treatise on
husbandry appeared, little more than
half century before our Puritan fathers
brought it with them to America.
From the commencement Of the nine
teenth century, we can speak Of Agricul-
ture as a science, and within the last thir-
| ~ vears II has received the attention. Of