In the earlier days of the state, as we have seen, it was honored, but then the nation was in its infancy, extremely rude, and with a small population and a small territory. It was a time, too, when commerce was looked upon as degrading, and war and agriculture engaged the whole attention of the Roman citizen, the farmer thinking himself able both to till and to defend his little farm. As the empire grew in power and wealth, the operations of agriculture were intrusted mainly to the hands of bondmen, who had little or no interest in the soil they tilled, and this alone was sufficient to prevent the art from reaching its most perfect condition. This imperfect cultivation was, without doubt, characteristic of the agriculture of Italy to some extent during the whole history of the Roman empire. We have, however, the statements of many successful crops, which show the interest manifested by individuals in different places. Thus Pliny says that 400 stalks of wheat, all grown from one seed, were sent to the emperor Augustus; and at another time 340 from one seed were sent to the emperor Nero from Byzacium in Africa, accompanied by the statement that "the soil when dry was so stiff that the strongest oxen could not plough it, but after a rain I have seen it opened by a share drawn by a wretched ass on the one side and an old woman on the other." As time passed on, improvements were made in the plough and other agricultural implements.

The Roman plough, the exact model of which is still used in Italy, the south of France, and part of Spain, consisted of a beam to which the yoke was attached, a handle or cross piece by which the ploughman held a share fixed into a share beam, two mould boards or one at pleasure, a coulter, and sometimes a wheel, which could be used or not at will. There were ploughs for heavy soils and ploughs for light ones, and indeed nearly every variety, so far as the principles of construction were concerned, which is known at the present day. The Romans also used spades, hoes, harrows, rakes, and some other farm implements. With all these, however, the farmer's work advanced but slowly. The first ploughing required two days for a jugerum (2/3 of an acre), and the second one day. The difference of soils and their adaptation to particular crops were well understood. Manures were saved with care. The excrements of birds were especially valued, and judicious-ly applied; composts were made in suitable places, hollows being scraped out in the form of a bowl to receive the wash from the house, and properly protected from the heat of the sun; lupines and clover were sown to plough in green, and the grain stubbles were often burnt over for the sake of the ashes.

With these appliances they raised wheat, rye, barley, oats, flax, millet, pease, beans, turnips, the grape, and the olive. But perhaps the ancients suffered more inconvenience in their agricultural operations from their failure to apply the mechanical forces of nature as a substitute for hard labor, than from any other cause. Even the water wheel was not known till more than 100 years after Christ, and the wind swept over the hills of Europe till the 11th century without turning a single mill. With the exception of some casual allusions by Roman writers, we have no accounts of the agriculture of other nations at or before the time when the Roman empire had begun to decline. But there is every reason to suppose that the art had reached a greater degree of perfection in countries east of the Mediterranean and in Egypt, than in Italy. It is certain that the inhabitants of the East were familiar with many mechanical appliances unknown to the Romans, and probably their agricultural systems were more complete. Rome herself, in the later days of her greatness, was supplied to a certain extent with the agricultural products of her conquered provinces.

Then set in that vast tide of conquest from the north, pouring over Italy, France, and Spain a race of barbarians, who gradually became absolute masters of nearly every country into which they penetrated. Agriculture was extremely depressed, and the condition of the serf to whom the tillage of the soil was left was in some cases even more hopeless and pitiable than that of the Roman slave who had tilled the soil before him. Scarcely a gleam of sunshine in the shape of improved culture lights up the gloom of this period, with the important exception of the introduction of an extensive system of irrigation in Spain, under the Saracens. These eastern invaders from the well-watered lands of western Asia and Egypt established in the peninsula what has been termed the southern system of agriculture, in distinction from the more peculiarly northern system of drainage, and developed the agricultural resources of Spain to an extent wholly unparalleled at that time in Europe, building reservoirs, canals, and aqueducts with immense labor and skill, and raising the annual revenues of that part of Spain under their dominion to nearly $30,000,000 - "a sum," as Gibbon says, "which in the 10th century probably surpassed the united revenues of all the Christian monarchs." The traces of these gigantic works still remain.

Bruges and Ghent were important manufacturing and commercial towns as early as the 11th century, and agriculture and manufactures there grew up together, even before a large part of Europe had risen from a state of barbarism; but the agriculture of Belgium and Holland was long in attaining the perfection to which it has now arrived. In Britain, the Romans had made many alterations for the better during their 400 years of occupation, as they were accustomed to do in all their provinces; but the agriculture of the island was extremely rude even when they left it, by far the greater part being covered with forests and marshes. Then the Saxons overran the country, subsisting mainly by the chase and by keeping large numbers of cattle, sheep, and especially swine, which readily fattened on the mast of the oak and the beech. In general, the only grains raised were wheat, barley, and oats, and they had but small quantities of these. The results of their labor were so uncertain and insecure, on account of the inability of the government to protect property and life, that all attempts at improved agriculture would have been in vain, even if individuals had been disposed to engage in them.