agriculture

[In Fr. agriculture; Ital. agricoltura; Sp., Port., & Lat. agricultura = the culture of a field. Ager in Gr. is ἀγρός ( agros ), and in Sans. agros. It is also cognate with the Goth. akrs, the Ger, acker, and the Eng. acre. ] E ential meaning = earth tilt, earth tillage. (Beames: Early England.) 1. In a general sense: The art of cultivating the ground, whether by pasturage, by tillage, or by gardening. In many countries the progre of human economical and social development has been from the savage state to hunting and fishing, from these to the pastoral state, from it again to agriculture properly so called, and thence, finally, to commerce and manufactures though even in the most advanced countries every one of the stages now mentioned, excepting only the first, and in part the second, still exist and flourish. The tillage of the soil has existed from a remote period of antiquity, and experience has from time to time improved the proce es adopted and the instruments in use; but it is not till a very recent period that the nece ity of basing the occupation of the farmer on physical and other science has been even partially recognised. Now a division is made into theoretical and practical agriculture, the former investigating the scientific principles on which the cultivation of the soil should be conducted, and the best methods of carrying them out; and the latter actually doing so in practice. The soil used for agricultural purposes is mainly derived from subjacent rocks, which cannot be properly understood without some knowledge of geology, while a study of the dip and strike of the rocks will also be of use in determining the most suitable directions for drains and places for wells. The composition of the soil, manures, ., requires for its determination agricultural chemistry. The weather cannot be properly understood without meteorology. The plants cultivated, the weeds requiring extirpation, the fungous growths which often do extensive and mysterious damage, fall under the province of botany; the domestic animals and the wild mammals, birds, and insects which prey on the produce of the field, under that of zoology. The complex machines and even the simplest implements are constructed upon principles revealed by natural philosophy: farm-buildings cannot be properly planned or constructed without a knowledge of architecture. Rents can be understood only by the student of political economy. Finally, farm-labourers cannot be governed or rendered loyal and trustworthy unle their superior knows the human heart, and acts on the Christian principle of doing to those under him as he would wish them, if his or their relative positions were reversed, to do to him. Information on the multifarious subjects bearing on agriculture will be found scattered throughout the work; it is not according to the plan pursued that they should be brought together in one place. "And the art of agriculture , by a regular connection and consequence, introduced and established the idea of a more permanent property in the soil than had hitherto been received and adopted."-Black stone: Comment. (1830), bk. ii., ch. i. 2. Spec.: Tillage, i.e. preparing the ground for the reception of crops, sowing or planting the latter, and in due time reaping them. In this sense it is contradistinguished from pasturage and even from ornamental gardening. "That there was tillage bestowed upon the antediluvian ground. Moses does indeed intiinate in general; what sort of tillage that was, is not expre ed. I hope to show that their agriculture was nothing near so laborious and troublesome, nor did it take so much time as ours doth."- Woodward: Nat. Hist.