An encyclopædia of agriculture

the Complete Farmer; clover is not called a grass, the Scotch pine a fir, or tubers roots, as in the Code; earth, soil, and mould are not confounded as in most farming books; and no cultivator is here told, as he is in Arthur Young's Farmers' Kalendar (May, art. Hemp, 1st edit. 1790, 12th edit. 1823.) to make the rent per acre a criterion in choosing a soil for any plant.

The recent changes, indeed, which have taken place in the market value of currency, render price a criterion of much too temporary a nature to be employed in any work which aims at general and permanent utility. For this reason we have in the Encyclopædia generally avoided money calculations, indicating the value of objects or operations by the quantity of materials and labor requisite to produce them; or by stating their cost relatively to the cost of other articles.

We have also avoided entering on the subject of state policy, as to the relative protection of Agriculture and manufactures, or of the protection of the home against the foreign grower of corn. Natural prices will always be safer for the farmer than artificial ones, and with low prices the farmer has the chance of deriving a greater benefit on an extraordinary rise, and sustaining less loss on an extraordinary fall. If the prices of corn were one half lower than they are, neither farmers nor proprietors would find their comforts diminished; for the value of manufactures and importations would fall in proportion to that of Agricultural produce. Price, it is true, is not always value; but they are never materially different for any length of time.

By referring to the Kalendarial Index, those parts of this work which treat of farm and forest culture, and management, may be consulted monthly as the operations require to be performed; and by recurring to the General Index, any particular subject may be traced alphabetically through all its ramifications of history, theory, practice, and statistics. Thus we have here combined an Agricultural Treatise, a Husbandman's Kalendar, and a Dictionary of Rural Affairs.

Bayswater, June 19, 1825.

J. C. L.

THE FOLLOWING TERMS

Being frequently used in a vague and indefinite manner, it will be of advantage to the reader to know beforehand the sense in which they are applied in this work. Other terms of less frequent use, or of various meaning, are explained in an alphabetical order in the General Index.

Agriculture is used in its most extensive sense in the third line of the title page, and generally in the Historical part of the work (Part I.) as including territorial economy and husbandry.

In most parts of this work, for example, in the words of the title page, " animal and vegetable productions of Agriculture,” as synonymous with husbandry.

In several places as synonymous with aration, that is, the culture of arable lands, as opposed to pasturage, or what may be called Agriculture proper. In every case the reader will be able to gather from the scope of the sentence or paragraph containing this term, in which of these three senses it is meant to be understood.

Territorial economy, what relates to the valuation, purchase, sale, exchange, arrangement, improvement by roads, canals, drainage, &c., of territorial surface, including interposing waters, as rivers, lakes, and also mines and minerals. Territorial improvements are mostly effected by the proprietors of lands or their agents and stewards, and not to any great extent by renters of land, or farmers.

Husbandry, the culture of arable grass and woodlands, the management of live stock, the dairy, poultry, &c., and, in general, what constitutes the business of the head of a family living by agricultural industry in the country.

Rural economy, rural affairs, geoponics, agronomics, terms considered as synonymous with husbandry.

Farming, renting land and cultivating it, or employing it for the purposes of husbandry.

Farmer (from fermier, Fr.), farming agriculturist, farming cultivator, professional farmer, commercial farmer, rent-paying farmer, &c.; a proprietor cultivating his own estate, is not correctly speaking a farmer, to be such he must pay a rent. A proprietor who cultivates his own soil may be a gentleman or yeoman agriculturist or husbandman, a proprietaire cultivateur, but not a farmer.

Husbandman, one who farms generally; that is, who both produces corn and cattle, and attends to the dairy, the poultry, the woodlands, and the orchard. A farmer may confine himself to grazing, or to breeding or haymaking, or milking or raising green crops for the market, &c., but in none of these cases can he with propriety be called a husbandThis term husbandman therefore is not exactly synonymous with farmer.

raan.

Grasses, all the natural order of Gramineæ, of Linnæus and Jussieu.

Cereal grasses, those grown for bread corn.

Pasture grasses, those grown chiefly for pasturage.

Funiculous grasses, those grown chiefly for hay.

Herbage plants, clover and other plants cultivated chiefly for the herb, to be used either green or made into hay.

Foliage crops, plants cultivated for their leaves to be used green, and which will not make into hay, as the cabbage tribe.

Root crops, esculent plants cultivated for their tubers, bulbs, or other enlarged parts produced under or immediately on the ground, and chiefly connected with the root, as the potatoe, turnip, carrot, &c.

Roots, the fibres and other ramifications of a plant under ground, and by which it imbibes nourishment. Tubers, bulbs, and other fleshy protuberances under ground, are employed by nature for the purposes of propagation or continuation, and therefore

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ought never to be confounded with common roots, which serve to nourish these tubers, bulbs, &c., in common with other parts of the plant.

Earth, as applied to the surface of the globe, one or more of the earths, as lime, clay, sand, &c., in a friable or divided state, and either alone or mixed; but without the addition of much organic matter.

Soil, earth, either of one, or of several sorts, mixed with decomposed organic

matters.

Mould, organic matter in a finely divided and decomposed state, with a little earth mixed, as vegetable mould, leaf mould, peat mould, &c.

Loam, any soil in which clay and organic matter exist in considerable proportions, and so as to render it neither very adhesive or hard, or soft and loose.

Land; ground, earthy surface in opposition to water or rocks; the term ground is generally applied to a comparatively limited extent of surface, as garden grounds, hop grounds, &c. in opposition to arable lands, wood lands, &c.

CONTENTS.

PART I.

AGRICULTURE CONSIDERED AS TO ITS ORIGIN, PROGRESS, AND PRESENT STATE,

AMONG DIFFERENT NATIONS, GOVERNMENTS, AND CLIMATES.