a Boox I. AGRICULTURE OF ANTIQUITY. a
oon them, till it acquires a velocity sufficient to enable them to throw the water over a bank into a canal. They work stark naked, or if in summer only with a slight blue cotton shirt or belt.””(Clarke’s Travels,&c-):
12. Of these immense embankments, some otf which served to keep in the river, and others to oppose the torrents of sand which occasionally were blown from the Great Desert, and which threatened to cover the country as effectually as the waters of the Nile, the
a ruins still remain. But in spite of these remains, the sand is accumulating, and the limits of cultivated Egypt have been annually decreasing for the last 1200 years; the barbarous nations to which the banks of the Nile have been subject during this period
\ having paid no attention to cultivation, or the preservation of these noble works of
~ antiquity.
3. Landed property, in ancient Egypt, it would appear, was the absolute right of the owners, till by the procurement of Joseph, in the eighteenth century B. C., the paramount or allodial property cf the whole was transferred to the government. The king, however, made no other use of that right, than to place the former occupiers in the situation of tenants in capite; bound to pay a rent or land-tax of one fifth of the produce. This, Moses says, continued to be the law of Egypt down to his time; and the same thing is confirmed by the testimony of Herodotus and Strabo.
14. The soil of Egypt iscompared by Pliny to that of the Leontines, formerly regarded as the most fertile in Sicily. There, he says, corn yields a hundred for one; but Cicero, as Gouguet observes, has proved this to be an exaggeration, and that the ordinary increase in that part of Sicily is eight for one. Granger(Relat. du Voy. fait en Egypte, 1730.), who paid much attention to this subject, says that the lands nearest to the Nile, which during the inundation were covered with water forty days, did not, in the most favorable seasons, yield more than ten for one; and that those lands which the water covered only five days, seldom gave more than four for one. This, however, is probably owing to fought their present neglected state.
15. Of the animal or vegetable products of Egyptian agriculture, very little isgknown. The ox seems to have been the chief animal of labor from the earliest period; and rice at all times the principal grain in cultivation. By a painting discovered in the ancient Elethia,(fig. 6.) it would appear the operation of reaping was performed much in the same way as at present, the ears being cropped by a hook, and the prin- cipal part of the straw left as stubble. Herodotus mentions, that, in his time, wheat was not cultivated, and that the bread made from it was despised, and reckoned not fit to be eaten. Beans were also held in abhorrence by the ancient inhabitants: but it is highly probable, that in latter times, when they began to have commerce with other nations, they would lay aside these and other prejudices, and cultivate what they found best suited to the foreign market.
16. Agriculture was no doubt the chief occupation of the Egyptians: and though they are said to have held the profession of shepherd in abhorrence, yet it appears Pharaoh
e to be
ee not only had considerable flocks and herds in his own possession, but was desirous of in-
ipiby troducing any improvement which might be made in their management: for when Jacob,
These in answer to his questions, told him, that he and his family had been brought up to the
: care of live stock from their youth, he expressed a wish to Moses to have a Jewish
, which bailiff for the superintendence of his grazing farm:“if thou knowest any men of activity rad among them, then make them rulers over my cattle.””(Gen. xlvii. 6.)
eyen on Secr. II. Of the Agriculture of the Greeks.
iter ie 17. The aboriginal Greeks or Pelasgi were civilised by colonies from Egypt, and re-
tlons 0 ceived from that country their agriculture, in common with other arts and customs.
Some of the ancient Greeks pretend that the culture of corn was taught them by
Ceres; but Herodotus and most of the ancients concur in considering this divinity as the
same with the Egyptian Isis. There is no particular evidence that the Greeks were much attached to, or greatly improved agriculture; though Homer gives us a picture of old King Laertes, divested of wealth, power, and grandeur, and living happy on a little farm, the fields of which were well cultivated.(Odyssey, lib. xxiv.) On another occa- sion, he represents a king standing amongst the reapers, and giving them directions by pointing with his sceptre.(Ibid. vy. 550.) Xenophon highly commends the art; but the practical instances he refers to, as examples, are of Persian kings.
18. What we know of the agriculture of Greece, is chiefly derived from the poem of Hesiod, entitled Works and Days. Some incidental remarks on the subject may be found in the writings of Herodotus, Xenophon, Theophrastus, and others, Varro, a
is he Roman, writing in the century preceding the commencement of our zra, informs us,
y a core that there were more than fifty authors, who might at that time be consulted on the sub-
between B 4 _ ie PR:—-<==——— ee a“ sone, a