their knowledge and practice concerning the careful tilling of the soil is to-day superior to ours, with all our boasted enlightenment. A tract of fifty square miles about Shanghai is called the Garden of China; and, while we of the United States are lamenting our worn-out farms, and talking about emigrating to virgin lands, this people, for countless generations, have tilled the same soil, and, under their management, it is to-day as productive as ever.

Some of the States of ancient Greece esteemed agriculture as the mother of arts, and their agricultural products were exhibited at the Olympic games. With the Spartans, however, agriculture was contemned. It was left to the Helots, their slaves, whom they thought fit only to cultivate the soil. It is not strange, therefore, that they should have been obliged to sup black broth (whatever that may have been). Nor is it strange that they took a distaste to their wretched fare, and finally rivalled even the Athenians in luxury, the laws of Lycurgus to the contrary notwithstanding.

THE TRUE DEFINITION OF AGRICULTURE.

Agriculture is not simply getting the utmost present wealth from the soil with the least outlay of labor. It is not the mere rearing of flocks and herds, to convert into as much ready money as possible. It is not hewing down forests to such a degree that the next generation must replant. It is not a system of culture that will exhaust the soil before the farmer's hair turns gray. And most certainly it is not raising crops to sell at such price as the buyer may arbitrarily choose to offer.

High and progressive agriculture is such a system of tillage as shall give the greatest present returns, while the soil retains its full fertility, or, still better, increases its powers

CO-OPERATION THE PANACEA.

39

from year to year. It is such a system of breeding and feeding stock that, while the enhanced value of animals. shall amply repay the labor and care bestowed, they shall improve in character and quality from generation to generation. It is such an intelligent appreciation of present conditions and future needs as, in clearing a timbered farm, shall lead to sparing trees enough for farm uses, and prevent the excessive denudation that will render a country arid and infertile from the want of rain and dew, or subject it to the unbroken force of sweeping and frightful storms. In improving a prairie farm, it is to set about planting the necessary timber that ultimately must be among the best paying crops on the farm. It is such a system of husbandry and rotation, by means of a diversified agriculture, that the farmer need not be dependent upon any one or two crops for his wealth. It is a business tact and thrift that always enables him to sell at the highest price, or at least on a strong and rising market. It is that counsel and assistance between neighbor and neighbor that draws close the bond of brotherhood, and by co-operation renders each one in the community helpful each to the other.

CO-OPERATION THE PANACEA.

It is by associated effort in Clubs, Granges, and other organizations of like social nature that much of this good can be accomplished. Communities in cities unite for the mutual protection of their interests; as witness the Trades' Unions and similar brotherhoods. Financiers have their Boards where they meet to lay plans, to deal in gold and paper money, and make stocks subserve their purposes of speculation. Railroad companies have their societies, and their yearly conventions, at which all assemble and organize

new methods or combinations to secure the utmost returns for their investments.

Why should there not be organized effort among farmers? The greatest difficulty, heretofore, has been their apathy, and their segregation one from another. But now the persistent exertions of a few leaders have awakened them and broken up that apathy, and the wonderful increase of late years in Clubs and Granges has counteracted, in a great measure, the disability caused by their segregation. The whole continent is aroused to the depredations of capital upon labor, and the evil influences which monopolies are exercising upon the consciences of our public men.

There must now be no step backward. If the farmers of the country now fail in asserting and maintaining their just rights, they will cease to be free agents, and become fitting subjects for the virtual slavery into which they will then surely drift. Their only salvation is in their Societies, their Clubs, their Granges. In union there is strength, and in union there is growth.

CHAPTER III.

RELATION OF AGRICULTURE TO HORTICULTURE.

EDUCATION THE KEY-NOTE TO PROGRESS.

The history of agriculture will show that, until the discovery of the art of printing, and the dissemination of knowledge thereby, the farmer was either a slave outright, or, at best, a mere vassal, who had no rights of which his feudal. lord might not dispossess him at will. The tiller of the soil was the pioneer who made his way into new countries, hewed down forests, reared flocks and herds, ditched and delved,

"Agriculture Speaking English.”

reclaimed the wilds, fenced in fields, planted vineyards, and founded communities, too often only to find himself dispossessed by some armed tyrant, who ate of his providing,

and reduced him to slavery. Thenceforth, he held nothing, except by the will of his master.

Such was agriculture until the era of the printing press, which not only marvelously lightened the burdens of scholastic training, but rendered comparatively easy the dissemination of knowledge among the masses. Then, to use the language of that old English farmer and writer, Evelyn, "Agriculture first began to speak English."

The savage is but little above the brute. His agriculture, if indeed he have any, consists simply in the planting, reaping, and storing away of the seeds of a few of the wild grasses, and digging a few of the wild roots that he may find growing beneath his tread. Emerging from barbarism, he gathers flocks and herds, and builds a permanent shelter for himself and family. Having a fixed habitation, he next learns to till the soil systematically as a means of subsistence. Art is now born, and manufactures begin to flourish. He plants a vineyard, becomes civilized, and horticulture and religion follow. Enlightenment ensues, and the cultivation of flowers comes in as a natural sequence, and with it poetry.

ADVANCED STATE OF HORTICULTURAL SCIENCE.

To show that husbandry is less progressive than its child, horticulture, we have only to observe the relative advance that has been made by agricultural and horticultural societies. The wide difference which this comparison will bring to light is due, chiefly, to the fact, that, while the prominent agricultural societies have, in most cases, confined their efforts to holding fairs, horticultural societies have been. earnestly engaged in discussing the theory and practice of their art, comparing results, and educating themselves up to a high standard of excellence.