292 hundred fold. Such increase, although far above the average rate, was sometimes even greatly exceeded, if we take the authority of Herodotus, Strabo, and Pliny. Along with the Babylonians, Egyptians, and Romans, the Israelites are classed as one of the great agricultural nations of antiquity. The sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt trained them for the more purely agricultural life that awaited them on their return to take posses sion of Canaan. Nearly the whole population were virtually husbandmen, and personally engaged in its pur suits. Upon their entrance into Canaan, they found the country occupied by a dense population possessed of walled cities and innumerable villages, masters of great accumulated wealth, and subsisting on the produce of their highly cultivated soil, which abounded with vineyards and olivejards. It was so rich in grain, that the invading army, numbering 601,730 able-bodied men, with their wives and children, and a mixed multitude of camp-followers, found " old corn " in the land sufficient to maintain them from the day that they passed the Jordan. The Mosaic Institute contained an agrarian law, based upon an equal division of the soil amongst the adult males, a census of whom was taken just before their entrance into Canaan. Provision was thus made for 600,000 yeomen, assign ing (according to different calculations) from sixteen to twenty-five acres of land to each. This land, held in direct tenure from Jehovah, their sovereign, was strictly inalienable. The accumulation of debt upon it was pre vented by the prohibition of interest, the release of debts every seventh year, and the reversion of the land to the proprietor, or his heirs, at each return of the year of jubilee. The owners of these small farms cultivated them with much care, and rendered them highly productive. They were favoured with a soil extremely fertile, and one which their skill and diligence kept in good condition. The stones were carefully cleared from the fields, which were also watered from canals and conduits, communicating with the brooks and streams with which the country "was well watered everywhere," and enriched by the application of manures. The seventh year s fallow prevented the exhaustion of the soil, which was further enriched by the burning of the weeds and spontaneous growth of the Sabbatical year. The crops chiefly cultivated were wheat, millet, barley, beans, and lentiles ; to which it is supposed, on grounds not improbable, may be added rice and cotton. The ox and the ass were used for labour. The word "oxen," which occurs in our version of the Scriptures, as well as in the Septuagint and Vulgate, denotes the species, rather than the sex. As the Hebrews did not mutilate any of their animals, bulls were in common use. The quantity of land ploughed by a yoke of oxen in one day was called a yoke or acre. Towards the end of October, with which month the rainy season begins, seedtime commenced, and of course does so still. The seedtime, begun in October, extends, for wheat and some other white crops, through November and December ; and barley continues to be sown until about the middle of February. The seed appears to have been sometimes ploughed in, and at other times to have been covered by harrowing. The cold winds which prevail in January and February frequently injured the crops in the more exposed aikl higher districts. The rainy season extends from October to April, during which time refreshing showers fall, chiefly during the night, and gene rally at intervals of a few days. The harvest was earlier or later as the rains towards the end of the season were more or less copious. It, however, generally commenced in April, and continued through May for the different crops in succession. In the south, and in the plains, the harvest, as might be expected, commenced some weeks earlier than in the northern and mountainous districts. The slopes cf [HISTORICAL the hills were carefully terraced arid irrigated wherever practicable, and on these slopes the vine and olive were cultivated with great success. At the same time the hill districts and neighbouring deserts afforded pasturage for numerous flocks and herds, and thus admitted of the benefits of a mixed husbandry. With such political and social arrangements, and under the peculiarly felicitous climate of Judea, the country as a whole, and at the more prosperous periods of the cornmonvpealth, must have ex hibited such an example of high cultivation, rich and varied produce, and wide-spread plenty and contentment, as the world has never yet elsewhere produced on an equally extensive scale. Not by a figure of speech but literally, every Israelite sat under the shadow of his own vine and fig-tree ; whilst the country as a whole is described (2 Kings xviii. 32) as " a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of oil-olive and of honey." An interesting illustration of the advanced state of agri culture in these ancient times is afforded by the fact, that, making allowance for climatic differences, the numerous allusions to it with which the Scriptures abound seem natural and appropriate to the British farmer of the present day. The unrivalled literature of Greece affords us little infor- Greece, mation regarding the practical details of her husbandry. The people who by what remains to us of their poetry, philosophy, history, and fine aits, still exert such an in fluence in guiding our intellectual efforts, in regulating taste, and in moulding our institutions, were originally the invaders and conquerors of the territory which they have rendered so famous. Having reduced the aboriginal tribes to bondage, they imposed upon them the labour of cultivat ing the soil, and hence both the occupation, and those engaged in it, were regarded contemptuously by the domi nant race, who addicted themselves to what they regarded as nobler pursuits. With the exception of certain districts, such as Bceotia, the country was naturally unfavourable to agriculture. When we find, however, that valleys were freed from lakes and morasses by drainage, that rocky surfaces were sometimes covered with transported soil, and that they possessed excellent breeds of the domesticated animals, which were reared in vast numbers, we infer that agriculture was better understood, and more carefully practised, than the allusions to it in their literature would seem to warrant. Amongst the ancient Romans agriculture was highly Rome, esteemed, and pursued with earnest love and devoted atten tion. " In all their foreign enterprises, even in earliest times," as Schlegel remarks, "they were exceedingly covetous of gain, or rather of land ; for it was in land, and in the produce of the soil, that their principal and almost only wealth consisted. They were a thoroughly agricultural people, and it was only at a later period that commerce, trades, and arts, were introduced among them, and even then they occupied but a subordinate place." 1 Their passion for agriculture survived very long ; and when at length their boundless conquests introduced an unheard-of luxury and corruption of morals, the noblest minds amongst them were strongly attracted towards the ancient virtue of the purer and simpler agricultural times. Severn! facts in Roman history afford convincing proof, if it were required, of the devotion of this ancient people to agricul ture, in their best and happiest times. Whilst their arts and sciences, and general literature, were borrowed from the Greeks, they created an original literature of their own, of which rural affairs formed the substance and inspiration. Schlegel and Mr Hoskyn notice also the striking fact, that 1 The Philosophy of History, l>y Frederick Von Schlegel. London,
184(5, p. 253.
