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 grammar, an antecedent is the noun to which a relative or other pronoun refers; as, Solomon was the prince who built the temple, where the word prince is the antecedent of who.
In logic, an antecedent is that member of a hypothetical or conditional proposition which contains the condition, and which is introduced by if or some equivalent word or words; as, if the sun is fixed, the earth must move. Here the first and conditional proposition is the antecedent, the second the consequent. Research Antecedent
Backwash is the flow of water down a beach under the influence of gravity after the breaking of a wave and its associated swash. As this water returns to the breaker zone it carries beach material with it. Steep waves, which break almost vertically on to a beach, have an extremely powerful backwash and move much material out to sea. Backwash contributes to longshore drift. Research Backwash
In the ancient astronomy, the epicycle was a small circle supposed to move round the circumference of a larger, a hypothetical mode of representing the apparent motion of the planets, which were supposed to have such a motion round the circumference of a large circle, called the deferent, having the earth in its centre. Research Epicycle
The Navigation Act of 1485 was passed by Henry VII so as to build up a Merchant Navy. The Act ordained that the Bordeaux wines brought to Britain were to be carried only in English ships manned by English, Irish or Welsh sailors.
A later Navigation Act, was promulgated by the British Government in 1651 (or even, in a sense, in 1645) for the protection of British commerce and the carrying trade. Its renewal with a few changes was made in 1660, soon after the accession of Charles II. The act related to five subjects: Coasting trade; fisheries; commerce with the colonies; commerce with European countries; commerce with Asia, Africa and America, and was chiefly a move in England's struggle with the Dutch for the possession of the carrying trade of the world. Parts of the Act provided that all colonial trade should be carried on in ships built and owned in England and the colonies, (a provision which powerfully stimulated colonial ship-building) and that, in the case of many specified goods, trade should be with England only. The act was largely rendered inoperative by colonial smuggling. The efforts at last made to enforce it were among the chief causes of the American War Of Independence. Research Navigation Act
A planchette is a piece of heart-shaped board, mounted on supports, two of which are casters, fixed at the broader end, with a pencil at the other, so that it can move easily over a sheet of paper when hands are placed lightly on it. The planchette is used by some mediums and mystics for supposed contact with spirits, who cause the pencil to write without volition from the person touching the board. Research Planchette
Swash is the movement of a thin layer of turbulent, foaming water up a beach following the breaking of a wave. As this water rushes along it carries sand and shell fragments with it, depositing them when it runs out of energy. Flat waves, which have a very strong swash, often move a lot of material on to a beach in this way. Some of the swash soaks into the beach, while the rest returns to the breaker zone as backwash; the edge of a zone of swash action is often marked by a line of seaweed and driftwood. Research Swash
Tide is a term applied to the alternate rising and falling of the sea, twice in each lunar day, to the attraction of the moon and the sun. The movement is most marked on shores which shelve gradually. The average interval between successive high tides is twelve hours and twenty-five minutes, half the time between successive passages of the moon across a given meridian. The height of the tide varies rhythmically. The highest, or spring, tides gradually change to the lowest, or neap, tides. The interval between successive spring tides is half a lunar month. Usually spring tides occur at or near the time when the moon is new or full, and neap tides when the moon is in the first or third quarter. This fact leading to an early realisation of the moon being the main cause of the tide.
The mass of the moon attracts the oceanic waters, which, being fluid, make a little peak pointing directly from the earth's centre to the centre of the moon; this peak is held on the line of centres while the earth rotates beneath it. To observers on the earth the peak of water appears to move. At the antipodes of this peak, on the side of the earth remote from the moon, a second peak occurs, because the distant water is again attracted to the line of centers. These peaks are the successive high tides.
The lunar attraction is coupled with a similar attraction due to the sun, but only of about just under one half the magnitude. When the line of centers of the earth and the moon approximates to the line of centers of the earth and the sun, i.e. at full and new moon, the combined solar and lunar tides produce the spring tides. When the two lines of centers are at right angles, at the first and third quarters, the solar attraction reduces the lunar effect, and produces the neap tides. The neap tides are, on average, 5:13 of the spring tides.
The above explanation of the outstanding tidal features merely explains the phenomena as they would occur upon an earth with a uniform film of water and without land mass. The interposition of the great land masses, and the differences in the oceanic depths, causes variations in the tides along the coasts. Research Tide
Topiary is the art of clipping, cutting and trimming trees and shrubs into ornamental designs and regular forms, human figures, animals, cups and saucers, peacocks, etc. Modern custom confines topiary work to solitary specimens, often grown in tubs, and specially trained; but at some country mansions, notably Levens Hall in Westmorland, and Elvaston in Derbyshire, whole topiary gardens of mature trees, in some instances over one hundred years old, are maintained. The trees which lend themselves most readily to clipping are box, yew, and holly. Topiary clipping needs an accurate eye and a steady hand, as a false move of the shears will often spoil the symmetry of a tree for a whole season. Research Topiary
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Agriculture
