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Sth October
rsonal influ-
which are
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logne, 1539).
(Grioningen,
d, and colo, I
and animals
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every clime,
1 yields little
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at 13 unsuited
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. a given ared
f the human
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ly after those
AGRICULTURE.
plants which yield man an abundant supply of food
are selected and made the objects of cultivation,
that population augments, and civilisation takes its
rise.
Man has selected a great variety of plants for
cultivation to afford him food and clothing. In
northern latitudes, wheat, barley, oats, rye, and the
potato form the chief plants from which he derives
gubsistence. These crops are most productive when
grown in summer in the temperate climates of the
carth, being unsuited to the heats of the torrid
zone. Their geographical limits, however, are greatly
extended by growing them as winter crops on the
borders of, and even within, the tropics. In these
regions, however, rice, maize, millet, and other graing
become far more productive of food than the already
mentioned cereals are in high latitudes, as they
flourish during the heats of summer. Where heat
and moisture are almost perennial in the tropics, the
banana, the bread-fruit tree, and other herbaceous
plants and trees, are most productive of human
food.—A. short historical outline of the A. of different
parts of the world will exhibit the chief elements
that regulate the practices of the husbandman.
The early civilisation of Egypt claims for it the first
notice in a passing outline of the chief systems of A.
The teeming population that existed in ancient times
in the narrow valley of the Nile, the large standing
army which was maintained, the extraordinary
works of engineering and architecture still visible
Modern Shadoof.
in our day, and the exportation of corn to other
nations, indicate an advanced state of the art of
A. Rain is a rare phenomenon in Upper Egypt,
and fertility is only maintained by the waters
of the Nile, which are subject to annual floods.
The risings and ebbings are as regular now as
they were in the days of Herodotus; and the
agricultural systems are also in a great measure
the same. The inundation which, unless prevented
by embankments, covers the whole land, occurs at
the hottest season. As the waters retire in October,
the land is sown with what are there styled winter
crops, consisting of wheat, barley, lentils, beans,
flax, lupines, chick-pease, &c. All these crops require
mo further watering, as the moisture which the soil
6
has imbibed during the inundation is sufficient to
bring them to maturity about the end of April, or
even a month sooner in Upper Egypt. Only one
crop in the year is grown upon most of the inun-
dated lands. Buton those lands which are protected
from the inundation, three crops a year may be
raised by means of artificial watering. Few of the
plants used as winter crops can be grown in summer
i Egypt. The plants adapted for summer consist of
rice (largely grown in the Delta), durra, millet, maize,
sesame, melons, onions ; they are sown from April
to August, and of several of them two crops in the
season ripen under the cloudless sky of Egypt. A
vast amount of manual labour and animal power is
expended in watering the ground for the summer crops.
81
