Agriculture is the art of cultivating the ground, more especially with the plough and in large areas or fields, in order to raise grain and other crops for man and beast; including the art of preparing the soil, sowing and planting seeds, removing the crops, and also the raising and feeding of cattle or other live stock. This art is the basis of all other arts, and in all countries coeval with the first dawn of civilization. At how remote a period it must have been successfully practised in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and China we have no means of knowing, but archaeologists have found evidence of agriculture being practised around 7000 BC. Egypt was renowned as a corn country in the time of the Jewish patriarchs, who themselves were keepers of flocks and herds rather than tillers of the soil. Naturally very little is known of the methods and details of agriculture in early times, though field archaeologists at Butser Ancient Farm in Hampshire have been conducting experiments for some years.
Among the ancient Greeks the implements of agriculture were very few and simple. Hesiod, who wrote a poem on agriculture as early as the eighth century BC, mentions a plough consisting of three parts, the share-beam, the draught-pole, and the plough-tail, but antiquarians are not agreed as to its exact form. The ground received three ploughings, one in autumn, another in spring, and a third immediately before sowing the seed. Manures were applied, and the advantage of mixing soils, as sand with clay or clay with sand, was understood. Seed was sown by hand, and covered with a rake. Grain was reaped with a sickle, bound in sheaves, thrashed, then winnowed by wind, laid in chests, bins, or granaries, and taken out as wanted by the family, to be ground.
Agriculture was highly esteemed among the ancient Romans. Cato, the censor, who was celebrated as a statesman, orator, and general, derived his highest honours from having written a voluminous work on agriculture. In his Georgics Virgil has thought the subject of agriculture worthy of being treated in the most graceful and harmoniousverse. The Romans used a great many different implements of agriculture. The plough is represented by Cato as of two kinds, one for strong, the other for light soils. Yarro mentions one with two mould-boards, with which, he says, 'when they plough, after sowing the seed, they are said to ridge'. Pliny mentions a plough with one mould-board, and others with a coulter, of which he says there were many kinds. Fallowing was a practice rarely deviated from by the Romans. In most cases a fallow and a year's crop succeeded each other. Manure was collected from nearly or quite as many sources as have been resorted to by the moderns. Irrigation on a large scale was applied both to arable and grasslands.
The Romans introduced their agricultural knowledge among the Britons, though it is known that the Britons were already practising agriculture, and during the most flourishing period of the Roman occupation large quantities of corn were exported from Britain to the Continent. During the time that the Angles and Saxons were extending their conquests over the country agriculture may have been neglected; but afterwards it was practised with some success among the Anglo-Saxon population, especially, as was generally the case during the middle ages, on lands belonging to the church. Swine formed at this time a most important portion of the live stock, finding plenty of oak and beech mast to eat.
The feudal system introduced by the Normans, though beneficial in some respects as tending to ensure the personal security of individuals, operated powerfully against progress in agricultural improvements. War and the chase, the two ancient and deadliest foes of husbandry, formed the most prominent occupations of the Norman princes and nobles. Thriving villages and smiling fields were converted into deer forests, vexatious imposts were laid on the farmers, and the serfs had no interest in the cultivation of the soil. But the monks of every monastery retained such of their lands as they could most conveniently take charge of, and these they cultivated with great care, under their own inspection, and frequently with their own hands. The various operations of husbandry, such as manuring, ploughing, sowing, harrowing, reaping, thrashing, winnowing, etc, are incidentally mentioned by the writers of those days; but it is impossible to collect from them a definite account of the manner in which those operations were performed.
The first English treatise on husbandry and the best of the early works on the subject was published in the reign of Henry VIII in 1534, by Sir A Fitzherbert, judge of the Common Pleas. It is entitled the Book of Husbandry, and contains directions for draining, clearing, and inclosing a farm, for enriching the soil, and rendering it fit for tillage. Lime, marl, and fallowing are strongly recommended. The subject of agriculture attained some prominence during the reign of Elizabeth I. The principal writers of that period were Tusser, Googe, and Sir Hugh Platt. Tusser's Five Hundredth Points of Good Husbandry (first complete edition published in 1580) conveys much useful instruction in metre, but few works of this time contain much that is original or valuable.
The first half of the seventeenth century produced no systematic work on agriculture, though several on different branches of the subject. About 1645 the field cultivation of red clover was introduced into England, the merit of this improvement being due to Sir Richard Weston, author of a Discourse on the Husbandry of Brabant and Flanders. The Dutch had devoted much attention to the improvement of winter roots, and also to the cultivation of clover and other artificial grasses, and the farmers and proprietors of England soon saw the advantages to be derived from their introduction. The cultivation of clover soon spread, and Sir Richard Weston seems also to have introduced turnips. Potatoes had been introduced during the latter part of the sixteenth century, but were not for long in general cultivation. A number of writers on agriculture appeared in England during the Commonwealth, the most important works on the subject being Blythe's Improver Improved and Hartlib's Legacy. The former writer speaks of a rotation, or rather alternation of crops, and well knew the use of lime, as also of other manures. In the eighteenth century the first name of importance in British agriculture is that of Jethro Tull, a gentleman of Berkshire, who began to drillwheat and other crops about the year 1701, and whose Horse-hoeing Husbandry was published in 1731.
Jethro Tull was a great advocate of the system of sowing crops in rows or drills with an interval between every two or three rows wide enough to allow of ploughing or hoeing to be carried on. After the time of Jethro Tull's publication no great alteration in British agriculture took place, until Robert Bakewell and others effected some important improvements in the breeds of cattle, sheep, and swine, in the latter half of the eighteenth century. The raising and maintenance of live stock, especially of sheep, was a characteristic of English farming from a very early time, and for several centuries the country had almost a monopoly in the supply of wool. To Bakewell we owe the breed of Leicestersheep. By the end of the nineteenth century it was a common practice to alternate green crops with grain crops, instead of exhausting the land with a number of successive crops of corn. A well-known writer on agriculture at this period, and one who did a great deal of good in diffusing a knowledge of the subject, was Arthur Young.
Scotland was for a long time behind England in agricultural progress. Great progress was made during the eighteenth century, however, especially in the latter half of it, turnips being introduced as a field-crop, and new implements such as the swing-plough and the thrashing-machine coming into general use. The construction of good roads through the country also gave agriculture a great impulse. During the wars caused by the French revolution of 1795 to 1814 the high price of agricultural produce led to an extraordinary improvement in agriculture all over Britain. The establishment of the institution called the National Board of Agriculture was also of very great service to British husbandry at this period. Though a private association it was assisted by an annual parliamentary grant, and prizes were given by it for the encouragement of experiments and improvements in agriculture. It existed from 1793 to 1816.
Among other societies which have greatly furthered the progress of agriculture in Britain, the chief are the Royal Agricultural Society of England, established in 1838; the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, founded in 1783; and the Royal Agricultural Society of Ireland, instituted in 1841. The objects of these and similar societies were such as the following: to encourage the introduction of improvements in agriculture; to encourage the improvement of agricultural implements and farm buildings; the application of chemistry to agriculture; the destruction of insects injurious to vegetation; to promote the discovery and adoption of new varieties of grain, or other useful vegetables; to collect information regarding the management of woods, plantations, and fences; to improve the education of those supported by the cultivation of the soil; to improve the veterinary art; to improve the breeds of live stock, etc. Shows are held, at which prizes are distributed for live stock, implements, and farm produce.
Through the efforts of the above-mentioned and other societies, the investigations of scientific men, the general diffusion of knowledge among all classes, and the necessity of competing with producers in foreign countries, agriculture made vast strides in Britain during the nineteenth century. Among the chief improvements were deep ploughing and thoroughdraining By the introduction of new or improved implements the labour necessary to the carrying out of agricultural operations was greatly diminished, as by the steam thrashing-machine, the steam-plough, and the reaping-machine. The nineteenth century saw also the introduction of chemistry into agriculture in Britain. The organization of plants, the primary elements of which they are composed, the food on which they live, and the constituents of soils, were all investigated, and most important results obtained particularly with regard to manures and rotations. Artificial manures, in great variety to supply the elements wanted for plant growth, came into common use at the end of the nineteenth century, not only increasing the produce of lands previously cultivated, but extending the limits of cultivation itself. An improvement in all kinds of stock became more and more general, feeding was conducted on more scientific principles, and improved varieties of plants used as field crops were introduced at the same time. At the end of the nineteenth century was introduced the system of ensilage for preserving fodder in a green state. However, by the start of the 20th century writers were proclaiming that, chiefly owing to foreign competition, agriculture had become a very unprofitable industry in Britain.
It is only since the nineteenth century that much progress was made in perfecting implements and machinery for cultivating the soil, sowing seed, drilling, rolling, hoeing, reaping, digging, etc. The first application of steam to ploughing dates from 1770, when Richard Edgeworth took out a patent for a steam ploughing machine, but it was 1852 before such application proved of any economic value. As early as 1829 a reaping-machine was invented by the Reverend Mr. Bell of Carmylie, Forfarshire, which, in an improved form, was still in use at the start of the twentieth century when numerous mowing and reaping-machines of ingenious construction were also introduced, many of which not only cut down the grain, but also bind it up into sheaves. At the start of the twentieth century steam was extensively used as a motive power in thrashing, in chaff-cutting, turnip-slicing, and even in churning. Only to be replaced after the invention of the combustion engine with petrol-power. Mechanisation led to the enlargement of fields, with small fields being amalgamated by the destruction of separating hedgerows to enable mechanical tractors and other farm vehicles to operate efficiently. The effect upon wildlife in Britain was devastating, and public concern started to grow.
The Second World War revolutionized agriculture in Britain, and led to the development of intensive farming techniques known as 'factory farming' and new anonymous breeds of livestock being developed which mature very quickly. During the later half of the twentieth century the public in Britain rebelled against the inhumanity of intensive animal husbandry, typified by 'battery hens' in which thousands of hens are kept in individual tiny cages within massive warehouses, unable to stretch let alone move around, and free-range or more traditional animal husbandry started to reappear in commercial agriculture.
The twentieth century also saw the wide scale introduction of chemical fertilizers and insecticides, many of which were harmful to the consumers and from a public backlash emerged a return to traditional farming, known as organic farming. Research Agriculture
In agriculture. Drilling is the plan of sowing seeds in parallel rows as distinguished from sowing them broadcast. The drilling method of sowing was introduced into England by Jethro Tull, who published a work on the subject in 1731. The crops which are now generally drilled are turnips, potatoes, beans, pease, carrots, clover, cereals, flax, etc. The first form of drill was of very simple construction, and was only adapted for sowing one row at a time, but now a great variety of improved implements are in use. Among the principal advantages of drilling over broadcast sowing we may mention that a considerable saving of seed is effected in the sowing of grain crops, but the great advantage is that in the case of green crops it enables the farmer more readily to clean the land both by the hand and by mechanised hoes. To keep the soil stirred and pulverized, which can only be properly done when the crops have been drilled, favours the retention and absorption of the moisture. Research Drilling
The Ocean Drilling Program (ODP), formerly known as the Deep-Sea DrillingProject until 1985 is a research project initiated in the USA in 1968, to sample the rocks of the ocean crust. Initially under the direction of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the project was planned and administered by the Joint Oceanographic Institutions for Deep Earth Sampling (JOIDES). The operation became international in 1975, when Britain, France, West Germany, Japan, and the USSR also became involved. Boreholes were drilled in all the oceans using the JOIDES ships GlomarChallenger and Resolution. Knowledge of the nature and history of the ocean basins was increased dramatically. The technical difficulty of drilling the seabed to a depth of 2,000 m was overcome by keeping the ship in position with side- thrusting propellers and satellite navigation, and by guiding the drill using a radiolocation system. The project is intended to continue until 2005. Research Ocean Drilling Program
Oliver Cromwell was Lord-protector of the commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland. He was born at Huntingdon in 1599 and died in 1658. His father, Robert Cromwell, who represented the borough of Huntingdon in the parliament of 1593, was a younger son of Sir Henry Cromwell, who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth I; and Sir Henry again was a son of Sir Richard Williams, a nephew of Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, whose name he took. Oliver Cromwell's mother was a daughter of William Steward, of Ely, and could trace her descent back to Alexander, lord-steward of Scotland, the founder of the house of Stuart. The first really authentic fact in his biography is his leaving school at Huntingdon and entering Sidney - Sussex College, Cambridge, on April the 23rd, 1616.
On the death of his father in 1617 he returned home, and in 1620 married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir James Bourchier. In 1628 he was member of parliament for the borough of Huntingdon, to which he returned on the dissolution in 1629. In 1631 he went with his family to a farm which he had taken at St Ives; and in 1636 to Ely, where he had inherited a property worth nearly 500 pounds a year.
During the Short and Long Parliaments he represented Cambridge, his influence gradually increasing. In the summer of 1642 he was actively engaged in raising and drilling volunteers for the parliamentary party, in view of the impending struggle with the king. He served as captain and colonel in the earlier part of the war, doing good service with his troop of horse at Edgehill;
and it was his energy and ability which made the Eastern Association the most efficient of those formed for mutual defence. At the battle of Winceby in 1643 he led the van, narrowly escaping death, and in the following year he led the victorious left at Marston Moor, deciding the result of the battle. A few months later he was present at the second battle of Newbury, and his action being fettered by the timidity of Manchester, he impeached the conduct of the earl. As the result of this disagreement Sir Thomas Fairfax was made lord general, while Oliver Cromwell, notwithstanding the Self-denying Ordinance, was placed under him, with the command of the cavalry and the rank of lieutenant-general.
As the result of the discipline introduced by Oliver Cromwell the decisive victory of Naseby was gained in 1645, and Leicester, Taunton, Bridgewater, Bristol, Devizes, Winchester, and Dartmouth fell into the hands of the parliament. On the occasion of the surrender of Charles by the Scottish army in 1646 Oliver Cromwell was one of the commissioners, and in the distribution of rewards for services received 2500 pounds a year from the estates of the Marquis of Worcester.
Though at first supporting parliament in its wish to disband the army, which refused to lay down its arms until the freedom of the nation was established, he afterwards saw reason to decide in favour of the latter course. Hastily suppressing the Welsh rising, he marched against the Scottish royalists, whom he defeated with a much inferior force at Preston on August the 17th,1648. Then followed the tragedy of the king's execution, Oliver Cromwell's name standing third in order in the death-warrant. Affairs in Ireland demanding his presence, he was appointed lord-lieutenant and commander-in-chief; and by making a terrible example of Drogheda in September, 1649, crushed the royalist party in that country within six months. Resigning the command to Ireton, he undertook, at the request of the parliament, a similar expedition against Scotland, where Charles II had been proclaimed king. With an army greatly reduced by sickness he saved himself from almost inevitable disaster by the splendid victory at Dunbar on September the 3rd, 1650, and a year later put an end to the struggle by his total defeat of the royalists at Worcester on September the 3rd, 1651. For these services he was rewarded with an estate of 4000 pounds a year, besides other honours.
He already exerted a weighty influence in the supreme direction of affairs, being instrumental in restoring the continental relations of England, which had been almost entirely dissolved, and regulating them so as to promote the interests of commerce. The Navigation Act, from which may be dated the rise of the naval power of England, was framed upon his suggestion, and passed in 1651. The Rump Parliament, as the remnant of the Long Parliament was called, had become worse than useless, and on April the 20th, 1653, Oliver Cromwell, with 300 soldiers, dispersed that body. He then summoned a council of state, consisting mainly of his principal officers, which finally chose a parliament of persons selected from the three kingdoms, nicknamed Barebone's Paliament, or the Little Parliament. Fifteen months after a new annual parliament was chosen; but Oliver Cromwell soon prevailed on this body, who were totally incapable of governing, to place the charge of the commonwealth in his hands.
The chief power now devolving again upon the council of officers on December the 12th 1653, they declared Oliver Cromwell sole governor of the commonwealth, under the name of Lord-protector, with an assistant council of twenty-one men. The new protector behaved with dignity and firmness. Despite the innumerable difficulties which beset him from adverse parliaments, insurgent royalists, and mutinous republicans, the early months of his rule established favourable treaties with Holland, Sweden, Portugal, Denmark, and France. In September 1656 he called a new parliament, which undertook the revisal of the constitution and offered Oliver Cromwell the title of king. On his refusal he was again installed as Lord-protector, but with his powers now legally defined.
Early in the following year, however, he peremptorily dissolved the house, which had rejected the authority of the second chamber. Abroad his influence still increased, reaching its full height after the victory of Dunkirk in June, 1658. But his masterly administration was not effected without severe strain, and upon the death of his favourite daughter, Elizabeth Claypole, in the beginning of August, 1658, his health began to fail him. Towards the end of the month he was confined to his room from a tertian fever, and on September the 3rd 1658, he died at Whitehall, in the sixtieth year of his age. He was buried in King Henry VII's Chapel, in Westminster Abbey, but after the Restoration his body was taken up and hanged at Tyburn, the head being fixed on a pole at Westminster Abbey, and the rest of the remains buried under the gallows.
Great as a general, Oliver Cromwell was still greater as a civil ruler. He lived in a simple and retired way, like a private man, and was abstemious, temperate, indefatigably industrious, and exact in his official duties. He possessed extraordinary penetration and knowledge of human nature; and devised the boldest plans with a quickness equalled only by the decision with which he executed them. No obstacle deterred him; and he was never at a loss for expedients. Cool and reserved, he patiently waited for the favourable moment, and never failed to make use of it. In his religious views he was a tolerant Calvinist. He was about 5 feet 10 inches in height, his body 'well compact and strong'; and his head and face, though wanting in refinement, were impressive in their unmistakable strength.
He had appointed his eldest son, Richard Cromwell, his successor; but the republican and religious fanaticism of the army and officers, with Fleetwood at their head, compelled Richard Cromwell to dissolve parliament; and a few days after he voluntarily abdicated the protectorship, on April the 22nd, 1659. His brother Henry, who from 1654 had governed Ireland in tranquillity, followed the example of Richard, and died in privacy in England.
At the Restoration Richard Cromwell went to the Continent until 1680, when he assumed the name of Clark, and passed the remainder of his days in tranquil seclusion at Cheshunt, Hertfordshire. He died in 1712, at the age of eighty-six.
The last of the family was Oliver Cromwell, great-grandson of Henry Cromwell, son of the protector. He was a London solicitor, and clerk to St Thomas' Hospital. He succeeded to the estate of Theobalds, which descended to him through the children of Richard Cromwell, and died at Cheshunt Park in 1821, aged seventy-nine. He wrote the Memoirs of the Protector and his Sons, illustrated by Family Papers, 1820. Research Oliver Cromwell
The term spiking a gun was applied to muzzle-loaders, fired from a vent or touch-hole in the breech, which was closed by driving into it a cast-iron spike, afterwards broken short off by a hammer so as to disable the weapon. The only remedy was drilling another vent, a long and tedious process. Research Spiking Guns
Acrylamide is an odourless, free-flowing white crystalline used as a chemical intermediate in the production and synthesis of polyacrylamides. These high-molecular weight polymers can be modified to develop non-ionic, anionic, or cationic properties for specific uses. The principle end use of
acrylamide is in water-soluble polymers used as additives for water treatment, enhanced oil recovery, flocculants, papermaking aids, thickeners, soil conditioning agents, sewage and waste treatment, ore processing, and permanent press fabrics.
Acrylamide is also used in the synthesis of dyes, in copolymers for contact lenses, and the construction of damfoundations, tunnels, and sewers. The largest use for polyacrylamide is in treating municipal drinking water and wastewater. The polymer is also used to remove suspended solids from industrial wastewater before discharge, reuse, or disposal.
Acrylamides also find use in oil-drilling processes to control fluid losses. In the pulp and paper industry, polyacrylamides are used as binders and retention aids for fibres and to retain pigments on paper fibres.
Acrylamide is a soil stabiliser and also finds use in foundry operations to facilitate free sand flow into moulds. Home appliances, building materials, and automotive parts are coated with acrylamide resins and thermosetting acrylics. Acrylamides are formulated in cosmetics and soap preparations as thickeners and in dental fixtures, hair grooming preparations, and pre-shave lotions. Minor uses of acrylamide are as latex thickeners, emulsion stabilisers for printing inks, gelling agents for explosives, binders in adhesives and adhesive tape, in the production of diazo compounds, and for gel chromatography and electrophoresis.
Acrylamide occurs in crystalline form and in aqueous solution. It is soluble in water, methanol, ethanol, dimethyl ether, and acetone; it is insoluble in benzene and heptane. The monomer readily polymerises at the melting point or under ultraviolet light. Solid acrylamide is stable at room temperature, but may polymerise violently when melted or in contact with oxidising agents such as chlorine dioxide and bromine. When heated to decomposition, acrylamide emits a poisonous gas, acrid fumes, and NOx. If heating to high temperatures, acrylamide can explode. Acrylamide is also known as
acrylamide monomer, acrylic amide, propenamide, and 2-propenamide. Research Acrylamide
Montmorillonite is a mineral discovered at Montmorillon in France, and confirmed as a distinct species in 1847. Montmorillonite is a form of clay found in many sedimentary rocks especially bentonite and in some metamorphic rocks. It is formed mainly through the alteration of pre-existent feldspar in rocks that are poor in silica. Montmorillonite is a hydrous hydrated silicate of sodium, calcium, aluminium and magnesium used in the petroleum industry as a drillingmud. Research Montmorillonite
Marine insurance is the insurance of ships or their cargo against specified causes of loss or damage that might be encountered at sea. The definition has widened over the years to include the transit of cargo over land at each end of the voyage and the term 'vessel' now extends to include ships under construction or repair and drilling rigs. Research Marine Insurance
Abbreviations
Research Agriculture
