Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 01.djvu/105

AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION  which was regarded as an epoch-making work. Since then great strides have been taken in this science. The most important bases of agricultural chemistry to-day are the experimental stations which are found in agricultural colleges, and in many of the universities in the United States and elsewhere.  AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION, education in the theory and practice of agriculture has received much attention in the present generation, especially in the last decade. In addition to the regular schools of agriculture maintained by most of the States, all the State colleges and universities and many of the private colleges and universities maintain departments for agricultural training. The courses given in these departments include all phases of the agricultural industry and many branches outside this immediate field. The Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations exercises general supervision over the methods and material of instruction in the United States. Experiment stations are maintained in many parts of the continental United States and in the dependencies. Most of the State universities and agricultural colleges also maintain separate experiment stations and great benefit has resulted from the researches and experiments carried on. Much of the work is done in model farms which are maintained in connection with the course of instruction. The United States Government contributes sums averaging about $1,500,000 a year divided among the States for the maintenance of experiment stations. The total number of stations is about 70. Other countries, especially Great Britain and France, are also active in promoting agricultural education. This work, delayed naturally by the war, was taken up with renewed vigor at its close.  AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY. See.  AGRICULTURE, the art of cultivating the ground, whether by pasturage, by tillage, or by gardening. In many countries the process of human economical and social development has been from the savage state to hunting and fishing, from these to the pastoral state, from it again to agriculture, properly so called, and thence, finally, to commerce and manufactures, though even in the most advanced countries every one of the states now mentioned, excepting only the first, and, in part, the second, still exist and flourish. The tillage of the soil has existed from a remote period of antiquity, and experience has from time to time improved the processes adopted and the instruments in use; but it was not till a very recent period that the necessity of basing the occupation of the farmer on physical and other science has been even partially recognized. Now a division is made into theoretical and practical agriculture, the former investigating the scientific principles on which the cultivation of the soil should be conducted, and the best methods of carrying them out; and the latter actually doing so in practice.

The soil used for agricultural purposes is mainly derived from subjacent rocks, which cannot be properly understood without some knowledge of geology, while a study of the dip and strike of the rocks will also be of use in determining the most suitable directions for drains and places for wells. The composition of the soil, manures, etc., requires for its determination agricultural chemistry. The weather cannot be properly understood without meteorology. The plants cultivated, the weeds requiring extirpation, the fungus growths which often do extensive and mysterious damage, fall under the province of botany; the domestic animals, and the wild mammals, birds and insects which prey on the produce of the field, under that of zoölogy. The complex machines and even the simplest implements are constructed upon principles revealed by natural philosophy; farm buildings cannot be properly planned or constructed without a knowledge of architecture. Rents can be understood only by the student of political economy. Finally, farm laborers cannot be governed or rendered loyal and trustworthy unless their superior knows the human heart, and acts on the Christian principle of doing to those under him as he would wish them, if his or their relative positions were reversed, to do to him. Notwithstanding the enormous expansion of the manufacturing industries in the 19th century, agriculture is still the greatest of the occupations of man.

Historical and General Aspects.—In all countries and ages, history records no instance of any civilization attained without noteworthy progress in agriculture. The relationship of agriculture to population expansion is one of the vital questions for economists. It appears that, in times so remote that their antiquity is only conjecturable, an excellent system of agriculture supported, in the valleys of the Nile and Euphrates, populations at least as dense as any existing to-day. The same agricultural perfection, attended by much the same exceptional conditions of the population which 