Excerpt from A Treatise on Agriculture, Comprising a Concise History of Its Origin and Progress: The Present The origin of this art is lost among the fables of antiquity, and we have to regret that, in the present state of knowlefige, we are even ignorant of the time when the plough was invented, and of the name and condition of the inventorf' When, there fore, we speak of the beginning of the art, we but al lude to certain appearances which indicate its exist ence, and the employment given by it to the minds, as well as to the hands of mankind. Such were the artificial canals and lakes of Egypt. Menaced at one time by a redundancy of water, and at an other by its scarcity or want, the genius of that very extraordinary people could not but employ it self, promptly and strenuously, in remedying these evils, and eventually in converting them into bene fits, and hence it was, that, when other parts of the world exhibited little more of agricultural knowl edge than appertains to the state of nature'irna gined by philosophers, the Egyptians thoroughly nu derstood and skilfully practised tflzgation, that most.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.