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Rh present. Gang-masters must be licensed by two justices, and may not hold a liquor license. The distance to be traversed on foot is fixed by the justices, and the licenses must be renewed every six months. Later legislation made more stringent the regulations under which children are employed in agricultural gangs. By the Elementary Education Act 1876, repealing and re-enacting the principal provisions of the Agricultural (Children) Act 1873, no child shall be employed under the age of eleven years, and none between eleven years and thirteen years before the child has obtained a certificate of having reached the standard of education fixed by a by-law in force in the district.

AGRICULTURE (from Lat. ager, field, and colere, to cultivate), the science, art and industry of utilizing the soil so as to produce the means of human subsistence, embracing in its widest sense the rearing of live-stock as well as the raising of crops. The history of agriculture is the history of man in his most primitive, and most permanent aspect. Hence the nations of antiquity ascribed to it a divine origin; Brahma in Hindustan, Isis in Egypt, Demeter in Greece, and Ceres in Italy, were its founders. The simplest form of agriculture is that in which crops are raised from one patch of ground till it is exhausted, when it is allowed to go wild and abandoned for another. This “extensive” husbandry is found in combination with a nomadic or semi-nomadic and pastoral organization, such as that of the German tribes described by Caesar and Tacitus (see especially Germania, 26). The discovery of the uses of the bare fallow and of manure, by making it possible to raise crops from the same area for an indefinite period, marks a stage of progress. This “intensive” culture in a more or less developed form was practised by the great nations of antiquity, and little decided advance was made till after the middle ages. The introduction of new plants, which made it possible to dispense with the bare fallow, and still later the application to husbandry of scientific discoveries as to soils, plant constituents and manures, brought about a revolution in farming. But the progress of husbandry, evidenced by the production of larger and better crops with more certainty, is due to that rationalizing of agricultural practices which is the work of modern times. What before was done in the light of experience is nowadays done in the light of knowledge. Even the earliest forms of intensive cultivation demand the practice of the fundamental processes of husbandry—ploughing, manuring, sowing, weeding, reaping. It is the improvements in methods, implements and materials, brought about by the application of science, that distinguish the husbandry of the 20th century from that of medieval and ancient times.  Ancient Husbandry.—The monumental records of Egypt are the source of the earliest information on farming. The Egypt of the Pharaohs was a country of great estates farmed either by tenants or by slaves or labourers under the superintendence of stewards. It owed its fertility to the Nile, which, inundating the land near its banks, was distributed by means of canals over more distant portions of its valley. The autumnal subsidence of the river was followed by shallow ploughing performed by oxen yoked to clumsy wooden ploughs, the clods being afterwards levelled with wooden hoes by hand. Next came the sowing, the seed being pressed into the soil by the feet of sheep which were driven over the fields. At harvest the corn was cut high on the stalk with short sickles and put up in sheaves, after which it was carried to the threshing-floor and there trodden out by the hoofs of oxen. Winnowing was done by women, who tossed the grain into the air with small wooden boards, the chaff being blown away by the winds. Wheat and barley were the chief crops, and another plant, perhaps identical with the durra, i.e. millet, of modern Egypt, was also cultivated. The latter, when ripe, was pulled up by the roots, and the grain was separated by means of an implement resembling a comb. To these crops may be added peas, beans and many herbs and esculent roots. Oxen were much prized, and breeding was carried on with a careful eye to selection. Immense numbers of ducks and geese were reared.

Diodorus Siculus, writing of later times, says that cattle were sent during a portion of each year to the marshy pastures of the delta, where they roamed under the care of herdsmen. They were fed with hay during the annual inundation, and at other times tethered in meadows of green clover. The flocks were shorn twice annually (a practice common to several Asiatic countries), and the ewes yeaned twice a year. (See also .)

The agriculture of the region bordering the Tigris and Euphrates, like that of Egypt, depended largely on irrigation, and traces of ancient canals are still to be seen in Babylonia. But beyond the fact that both Babylonia and Assyria were large producers of cereals, little is known of their husbandry.

The nomads of the patriarchal ages, whilst mainly dependent upon their flocks and herds, practised also agriculture proper. The tracts over which they roamed were in ordinary circumstances common to all shepherds alike. During the summer they frequented the mountainous districts, and retired to the valleys to winter. Vast flocks of sheep and of goat constituted their wealth, although they also possessed oxen. When the last were abundant, it seems to be an indication that tillage was practised. Job, besides immense possessions in flocks and herds, had 500 yoke of oxen, which he employed in ploughing, and a “very great husbandry.” Isaac, too, conjoined tillage with pastoral husbandry, and that with success, for “he sowed in the land Gerar, and reaped an hundred-fold”—a return which, it would appear, in some favoured regions, occasionally rewarded the labour of the husbandman. In the parable of the sower, Jesus Christ mentions an increase of thirty, sixty and an hundred fold.

Along with the Babylonians, Egyptians and Romans, the Israelites are classed as one of the great agricultural nations of antiquity. 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, assigning (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 in theory inalienable. The accumulation of debt upon it was prevented 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 lentils; to which it is supposed, on grounds not improbable, may be added rice and cotton. The chief implements were a wooden plough of simple and light construction, a hoe or mattock, and a light harrow. 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 and higher districts. The rainy season extends from October to April, during which time refreshing showers fall, chiefly during the night, and generally at intervals of a few days. The harvest was earlier or later as