AGRICULTURE, HISTORY OF

history of the practice of cultivating the soil, harvesting crops, and raising livestock from its origins in prehistoric times to the present. Agriculture was long believed to have begun in a single centre in the Middle East, about 4000 BC. Modern dating techniques have since disproved this hypothesis; they indicate agriculture already in progress about 7000 BC, and archaeologists have uncovered evidence of animal domestication thousands of years earlier. It has also been shown that some plants were probably cultivated in the New World, which suggests that agricultural development took place simultaneously in many areas and thus did not spread from a single originating centre. This article discusses developments in crop and stock farming in the ancient societies of the Middle East and the Mediterranean, in China and India, in Roman and medieval Europe, and in more recent times, after the introduction of power machinery and scientific farming methods in the 19th and 20th centuries. The development of agriculture between the close of the 18th century and the early years of the 20th century was characterized by the partial mechanization of agriculture in western Europeespecially in Great Britainand in the previously untapped lands of Australia, New Zealand, and North America, where wild, uncultivated, and virtually unoccupied land was made to yield vast quantities of plant and animal crops. Mechanization Though the first steps had been taken earlier, it was not until after 1850 that mechanization took hold in western Europe and the newly settled countries. A variety of machines were slowly coming into use when the French revolutionary wars broke out in the 1790s. An efficient seed drill had been devised but still required demonstration in the 1830s to convince farmers of its value. A few threshing machines were in use before 1800, and they became steadily more popular until, in the 1830s, farm labourers in England rebelled against them because the machine robbed them of their winter employment. The speed with which the thresher was adopted is rather surprising, as there was a surplus rather than a shortage of labour at the time. Additional reading Origins of agriculture and early agriculture societies Sir Joseph Hutchinson (ed.), Essays on Crop Plant Evolution (1965); and Peter J. Ucko and G.W. Dimbleby (eds.), The Domestication and Exploitation of Plants and Animals (1969), are collections of papers on the origins of agriculture; E.S. Higgs (ed.), Papers in Economic Prehistory (1972), and Palaeoeconomy (1975), contain a reconsideration of theories on the origins of agriculture and some results of modern research; David Rindos, The Origins of Agriculture: An Evolutionary Perspective (1984), concentrates on the history of man's effort to domesticate plants; J. Desmond Clark and Steven A. Brandt (eds.), From Hunters to Farmers: The Causes and Consequences of Food Production in Africa (1984), analyzes economic changes in prehistoric society; Graeme Barker, Prehistoric Farming in Europe (1985), gives an account of the evolution of farming after the Ice Age. Agriculture in ancient Asia Hiuen Tsiang, Si-yu-ki: Buddhist Records of the Western World, 2 vol., trans. by Samuel Beal (1884, reprinted 1981), offers travel accounts of early Chinese Buddhist pilgrims to India in the 1st millennium, including those of Shih Fa-hian, Sung Yn, and Hiuen Tsiang; Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, The Economic History of China (1921, reprinted 1969), is a history of Chinese agriculture with emphasis on soil depletion; Kwang-Chih Chang, The Archaeology of Ancient China, 3rd rev. ed. (1977), is a modern text interpreting prehistoric and protohistoric archaeological evidence in the historical framework of cultural development until 221 BC (illustrated, with bibliography); Ping-Ti-Ho, Studies on the Population of China, 13681953 (1959, reprinted 1967), is a scholarly study of population growth and of interacting variables, such as migrations, land utilization and tenure, and food-production techniques, with extensive data tables, bibliography, and notes; N.I. Vavilov, The Origin, Variation, Immunity and Breeding of Cultivated Plants (1951), presents selected writings of Vavilov, one of the world's outstanding contributors to the theory of genetics, plant breeding, and study of plant variation, systematics, and evolution (illustrated, with selected bibliography); V. Gordon Childe, New Light on the Most Ancient East, 4th ed. (1952, reprinted 1969), is an excellent introduction to the Indus Valley Civilization in comparison with the prehistories of Egypt and Mesopotamiafrom the Nile to the Indus (illustrated, with bibliography); Bridget and Raymond Allchin, The Birth of Indian Civilization (1968), is a useful general history from the Early Stone Age until 550 BC (maps, plates, list of radioactive carbon dates, and bibliography); see also J.W. McCrindle, McCrindle's Ancient India: As Described by Megasthenes and Arrian (1877, reissued 1984); Ifran Habib, The Agrarian System of Mughal India (15561707) (1963), is an informative text that covers cultivation techniques, crops, land tenure, village communities, and revenue administration; and Andrew M. Watson, Agricultural Innovation in the Early Islamic World (1983), a systematic, informative overview. Agriculture in the West from 200 BC to AD 1900 G.E. Fussell, Farming Technique from Prehistoric to Modern Times (1966), is a general review of the history of agricultural tools and techniques, with many illustrations and an extensive bibliography; David Grigg, The Dynamics of Agricultural Change (1982), is a survey of historical sources. Jean Philippe Lvy, The Economic Life of the Ancient World (1967; originally published in French, 1964), describes the various economies of the Greco-Oriental world in the time before Alexander, during the Hellenistic Age, in the early Roman Empire, and also in the later Roman Empire; Fritz M. Heichelheim, An Ancient Economic History, rev. ed., 3 vol. (195870; originally published in German, 1938), contains extensive and detailed information on ancient agriculture; see also standard editions of such classical authors as Cato, Columella, Hesiod, Pliny, Varro, and Xenophon. Georges Duby, Rural Economy and Country Life in the Medieval West (1968, reprinted 1976; originally published in French, 1962), is a classic work on agriculture from the 9th to 15th centuries; see also Robert Latouche, The Birth of Western Economy, 2nd ed. (1967, reprinted 1981; originally published in French, 1956); Lynn White, Jr., Medieval Technology and Social Change (1962, reissued 1980); B.H. Slicher Van Bath, The Agrarian History of Western Europe, AD 5001850 (1963; originally published in Dutch, 1960); Wilhelm Abel, Geschichte der deutschen Landwirtschaft vom frhen Mittelalter bis zum 19. Jahrhundert, 3rd rev. ed. (1978); Raymond Gromas, Histoire agricole de la France (1947); Marc Bloch, French Rural History (1966; originally published in French, 195256); and Paul Lindemans, Geschiedenis van de Landbouw in Belgi, 2 vol. (1952). Christabel S. Orwin and Edith H. Whetham, History of British Agriculture, 18461914, 2nd ed. (1971), deals with agricultural policy, social change, and technical and scientific developments during this period in England; Lord Ernle (Rowland D. Prothero), English Farming Past and Present, 6th ed. (1961), is a classic work describing six centuries of British agriculture; Christopher Taylor, Village and Farmstead: A History of Rural Settlement in England (1983), analyzes the density of population in Britain in the late Iron Age; Freiherr Von Der Goltz, Geschichte der deutschen Landwirtschaft, 2 vol. (190203), deals with agriculture in Germany. See also Albert Demolon, L'volution scientifique et l'agriculture franaise (1946); Michel Aug-Larib, La Rvolution agricole (1955); Z.W. Sneller (ed.), Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse Landbouw, 17951940, 2nd ed. (1951); Heinz Haushofer, Die deutsche Landwirtschaft im technischen Zeitalter, 2nd ed. (1972); Cesare Longobardi, Land-Reclamation in Italy, trans. from the Italian (1936, reprinted 1975); Lewis Cecil Gray and Esther Katherine Thompson, History of Agriculture in the Southern United States to 1860, 2 vol. (1933, reprinted 1973); Percy W. Bidwell and John I. Falconer, History of Agriculture in the Northern United States, 16201860 (1925, reprinted 1973); Norman Scott Brien Gras, A History of Agriculture in Europe and America, 2nd ed. (1940, reprinted 1968); Reynold M. Wik, Steam Power on the American Farm (1953); Wayne D. Rasmussen (ed.), Readings in the History of American Agriculture (1960); Robert Leslie Jones, History of Agriculture in Ohio to 1880 (1983); Eric Van Young, Hacienda and Market in Eighteenth-Century Mexico: The Rural Economy of the Guadalajara Region, 16751820 (1981); Clark C. Spence, God Speed the Plow: The Coming of Steam Cultivation to Great Britain (1960); and Ronald H. Clark, The Development of the English Traction Engine (1960). For broader surveys see Jerome Blum (ed.), Our Forgotten Past: Seven Centuries of Life on the Land (1982), a well-illustrated collection of essays; Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie and Joseph Goy, Tithe and Agrarian History from the Fourteenth to the Nineteenth Centuries, trans. from the French (1982), a comparative descriptionof agricultural production in several countries; and David Hoseason Morgan, Harvesters and Harvesting, 18401900: A Study of the Rural Proletariat (1982), a blend of economic and social history. The 20th century Archie A. Stone and Harold E. Gulvin, Machines for Power Farming, 3rd ed. (1977), is a fine general text describing modern farm machinery, including power sources, tilling equipment, applicators for fertilizer, seeders, pest-control machinery, and harvesting equipment; Daniel Faucher, Le Paysan et la machine (1954), is a history of farm machinery; Hubert Martin, The Scientific Principles of Crop Protection, 7th ed. (1983), is a classic work by the world's leading authority on pesticides; George Ordish, Untaken Harvest (1951), describes the economics of plant losses and their control; Kenneth Mellanby, Farming and Wildlife (1981), studies the effects of modern farming on native flora and fauna; and Theodore Saloutos, The American Farmer and the New Deal (1982), explores U.S. agricultural policies during the first half of the 20th century. Eric S. Higgs George Edwin Fussell Kusum Nair Wayne D. Rasmussen Alic William Gray George Ordish Kenneth Mellanby Agriculture in ancient Asia On his way across the Pamirs in search of Buddhist texts (AD 518) the Chinese pilgrim Sung Yn noted that the crest of the bare, cold, snowy highlands was commonly believed to be the middle point of heaven and earth: The people of this region use the water of the rivers for irrigating their lands; and when they were told that in the middle country (China) the fields were watered by the rain, they laughed and said, How could heaven provide enough for all? Yet, heaven provided. It has long supported more than one-half of humanity on less than a seventh of the Earth's land surface along the continental rim to the south and east of the high interior mass with its festoons of mountains. In the so-called golden fringe to a beggar's mantlefrom Pakistan through India, Burma, Thailand, Indochina, and eastern China up to the Gulf of Chihli, and the offshore island groups of Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon)lives the vast majority of the population of Asia. Some 1,800,000,000 people are concentrated in two countries, China and India. There is no consensus on the origin and progress of plant and animal domestication. The Soviet plant geneticist Nikolay Ivanovich Vavilov postulated several world centres of plant origin, of which, an unusual wealth of original genera, species, and varieties of plants is found in India and China, countries which have contributed almost half of our crop plants . . . . China Vavilov thought that the mountainous regions of central and western China, together with the adjacent lowlands, constituted the earliest and largest independent centre of the world's agriculture. From earliest times, land use has been divided into two major regions by the Tsinling Mountains, with wheat predominant in the northern realm and rice in the south. At different periods and places, subsidiary crops have included soybean, kaoliang (a grain sorghum), millet, corn, barley, sweet potatoes, peanuts, fruits, and vegetables. Cotton, tobacco, sugarcane, tea, and sericulture (silkworms) have been the important cash crops.