The Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia Volume 1 of 28

sec. IV. Ar­chae­ol­ogy and Art.– Pub­li­ca­tions of the Egyp­tian Ex­plo­ration Fund; A. Ma­ri­ette-​Bey, The Mon­uments of Up­per Egypt (1890); H. Brugsch, Die Agyp­tolo­gie (Leipzig, 1891); G. Maspero, L’ Arche­olo­gie egyp­ti­enne (Paris, 1890?); R. Lep­sius, Denkmaler aus Agypten und Athiopi­en . . ., 6 vols. (Berlin, 1849-1859); G. A. Hoskins, Trav­els in Ethiopia . . . il­lus­trat­ing the An­tiq­ui­ties of the An­cient King­dom of Meroe (1835); Records of the Past: be­ing En­glish Trans­la­tions of . . . Egyp­tian Mon­uments, vols. 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 (1873-1881); Dit­to, new se­ries, 6 vols. (1890-1892); D. Ran­dall-​MacIv­er and A. Wilkin, Libyan Notes (1901) (ar­chae­ol­ogy and eth­nol­ogy of North Africa); G. Boissier, L’Afrique ro­maine Prom­enades arche­ologiques en Al­gerie et en Tunisie, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1901); H. Ran­dall-​MacIv­er, Me­di­ae­val Rhode­sia (1906); Prisse d’Avennes, His­toire de l’art egyp­tien d’apres les mon­uments, &c. with at­las (Paris, 1879; G. Per­rot and C. Chip­iez, His­to­ry of Art in An­cient Egypt, 2 vols. (1993); H. Wal­lis, Egyp­tian Ce­ram­ic Art (1900); C. H. Read and O. M. Dal­ton, An­tiq­ui­ties from the City of Benin and from oth­er parts of West Africa (1899).

sec. V. Trav­el and Ex­plo­ration.–Dean W. Vin­cent, The Com­merce and Nav­iga­tion of the An­cients, vol. 2, The Periplus ofthe Ery­thraean Sea (1807); G. E. de Azu­rara, Chron­icle of the Dis­cov­ery and Con­quest of Guinea (Eng. trans., 2 vols., 1896, 1899); R. H. Ma­jor, Life of Prince Hen­ry the Nav­iga­tor (1868); E. G. Raven­stein, “The Voy­ages of Dio­go Cao and Barth. Di­az,” Ge­ogr. Journ., Dec. 1900; O. Har­tig, “Al­tere Ent­deck­ungs­geschichte und Kar­togra­phie Afrikas,” Mitt. Ge­ogr. Gesells. Wien, 1905; J. Ley­den and H. Mur­ray, His­tor­ical Ac­count of Dis­cov­er­ies, &c., 2 vols., 2nd ed. (1818); T. E. Bowditch, Ac­count of the Dis­cov­er­ies of the Por­tuguese in the In­te­ri­or of An­go­la and Mozam­bique (1824); P. Paulitschke, Die ge­ogr. Forschung des afrikan. Con­ti­nents (Vi­en­na, 1880); A. Su­pan, “Ein Jahrhun­dert der Afri­ka-​Forschung,” Pe­term. Mitt., 1888; R. Brown, The Sto­ry of Africa and its Ex­plor­ers, 4 vols. (1892-1895); Sir Har­ry John­ston, The Nile Quest (1903); James Bruce, Trav­els to dis­cov­er the Source of the Nile in 1768-1773, 5 vols., Ed­in­burgh (1790); Pro­ceed­ings of the As­so­ci­ation for . . . Dis­cov­ery of!the In­te­ri­or Parts of Africa, 1790-1810; Mun­go Park, Trav­els in­to the In­te­ri­or Dis­tricts of Africa (1799); Idem, Jour­nal of a Mis­sion, &c. (1815); Capt. J. K. Tuck­ey, Nar­ra­tive of an Ex­pe­di­tion to ex­plore the Riv­er Zaire or Con­go in 1816 (1818): D. Den­ham and H. Clap­per­ton, Nar­ra­tive of Trav­els and Dis­cov­er­ies in N. and Cent. Africa (1826); R. Cail­lie, Jour­nal d’un voy­age a Tem­boc­tu et a Jenne, 3 vols., Paris (1830); D. Liv­ing­stone, Mis­sion­ary Trav­els . . . in South Africa (1857); The Last Jour­nals of David Liv­ing­stone in Cen­tral Africa, ed. H. Waller (1874); H. Barth, Trav­els and Dis­cov­er­ies in North and Cen­tral Africa, 5 vols. (1857); J. L. Krapf, Trav­els, Re­search­es, &c., in East­ern Africa (1860); Sir R. F. Bur­ton, The Lake Re­gions of Cen­tral Africa, 2 vols. (1860); J. H. Speke, Jour­nal of the Dis­cov­ery of the Source of the Nile (1863).: Sir S. W. Bak­er, The Al­bert Nyan­za, 2 vols. (1866); G. Schwe­in­furth, The Heart of Africa, 2 vols. (1873); V. L. Cameron, Across Africa, 2 vols. (1877); T. Baines, The Gold Re­gions of South-​East­ern Africa (1877); Sir H. M. Stan­ley, Through the Dark Con­ti­nent, 2 vols. (1878); Idem, In Dark­est Africa, 2 vols. (1890); G. Nachti­gal, Sa­hara und Su­dan, 3 vols. (Berlin, 1879-1889); P. S. de Braz­za, Les Voy­ages de . . . (1875-1882), Paris, 1884; i. Thom­son, Through Ma­sai Land (1885); H. von Wiss­mann, Unter Deutsch­er Flagge quer durch Afri­ka, &c. (Berlin, 1889); Idem, My Sec­ond Jour­ney through Equa­to­ri­al Africa (1891); W. Junker, Trav­els in Africa 1875-1886, 3 vols. (1890-1892); L. G. Binger, Du Niger au Golfe de Guinee, &c. (Paris, 1892); O. Bau­mann, Durch Ma­sai­land zur Nilquelle (Berlin, 1894); R. Kandt, Ca­put Nili (Berlin, 1904); C. A. von Gotzen, Durch Afri­ka von Ost nach West (Berlin, 1896); L. Vanutel­li and C. Citerni, Sec­on­da spedi­zione Bot­tego: L’Omo (Mi­lan, 1899); P. Foureau, D’Al­ger au Con­go par le Tchad (Paris, 1902); C. Lemaire, Mis­sion sci­en­tifique du Ka-​Tan­ga: Jour­nal de route, 1 vol., Re­sul­tats des ob­ser­va­tions, 16 parts (Brus­sels, 1902); A. St. H. Gib­bons, Africa from South to North through Marot­se­land, 2 vols. (1904); E. Lenfant, La Grande Route du Tchad (Paris, 1905); Boyd Alexan­der, From the Niger to the Nile, 2 vols. (1907).

sec. VI. His­tor­ical and Po­lit­ical.–H.Schurtz, Africa (World’s His­to­ry, vol. 3, part 3) (1903); Sir H. H. John­ston, His­to­ry of the Col­oniza­tion of Africa by Alien Races (Cam­bridge, 1899) (reprint with ad­di­tion­al chap­ter “Lat­est De­vel­op­ments,” 1905); A. H. L. Heeren, Re­flec­tions on the Pol­itics, In­ter­course and Trade of the An­cient Na­tions of Africa, 2 vols. (Ox­ford, 1832); G. Rawl­in­son, His­to­ry of An­cient Egypt (1881); A. Gra­ham, Ro­man Africa (1902); J. de Bar­ros, Asia: Ira Deca­da, Lis­bon (1552 and 1777-1778); J. Stran­des, Die Por­tugiesen­zeit von . . . Ostafri­ka (Berlin, 1899); R. Schuck, Bran­den­burg- Preussens Kolo­nial-​Poli­tik . . . 1641-1721, 2 vols. Leipzig, 1889): G. M`Call Theal, His­to­ry and Ethnog­ra­phy of Africa south of the Zambe­si . . . to 1795, 3 vols. (1907-1910), and His­to­ry of South Africa since Septem­ber 1795 (to 1872) 5 vols. (1908); Idem, Records of South-​East­ern Africa, 9 vols., 1898-1903; La­dy Lu­gard, A Trop­ical De­pen­den­cy: Out­line of the His­to­ry of the West­ern Su­dan, &c.; (1905); Sir F. Hert­slet, The Map of Africa by Treaty, 3 vols. (3rd ed., 1909); J . S. Keltie, The Par­ti­tion of Africa, 2nd ed. (1895); F. Van Or­troy, Con­ven­tions in­ter­na­tionales definis­sant les lim­ites . . . en Afrique (Brus­sels, 1898); Gen­er­al Act of the Con­fer­ence of Berlin, 1885: The Sur­veys and Ex­plo­rations of British Africa (Colo­nial Re­ports, No. 500) (1906), and an­nu­al re­ports there­after; Sir F. D. Lu­gard, The Rise or our East African Em­pire, 2 vols. (1893); E. Pe­tit, Les colonies fran­cais­es, 2 vols. (Paris, 1902-1904); E. Rouard de Card, Les Traites de pro­tec­torat con­clus par la France en Afrique, 1870-1895 (Paris, 1897); A. J. de Arau­jo, Colonies por­tuguais­es d’Afrique Lis­bon, 1900); B.Trog­nitz, “Neue Are­albes­tim­mung des Con­ti­nents Afri­ka,” Pe­ter­manns Mitt., 1893, 220-221; A. Su­pan, “Die Bevolkerung der Erde,” xii., Pe­term. Mitt. Er­ganzung­sh. 146 (Gotha, 1904) (deals with ar­eas as well as pop­ula­tion).

sec. VII. Com­merce and Eco­nomics.–A. Sil­va White, The De­vel­op­ment of Africa, 2nd ed. (1892): K. Dove, “Grundzuge ein­er Wirtschafts­geogra­phie Afrikas,” Ge­ographis­che Zeitschrift, 1905, i-18; E. Hahn, “Die Stel­lung Afrikas in der Geschichte des Welthandels,” Ver­han­dl. 11. Deutsch. Ge­ographen­tags zu Bre­men (Berlin, 1896); L. de Lau­nay, Les Richess­es min­erales de l’Afrique (Paris, 1903); K. Fut­ter­er, Afri­ka in sein­er Be­deu­tung fur die Gold­pro­duk­tion (Berlin, 1894); P. Re­ichard, “Das afrikan. Elfen­bein und sein Han­del,” Deutsche ge­ogr. Blat­ter (Bre­men, 1889); Sir A. Moloney, Sketch of the Forestry of West Africa (1887); Dew­evre, “Les Caoutchoucs africains,” Ann. Soc. Sci. Brux­elles, 1895; Sir T. F. Bux­ton, The African Slave Trade and its Rem­edy (1840); C. M. A. Lav­igerie, L’Es­clavage africain (Paris, 1888); E. de Ren­ty, Les chemins de fer colo­ni­aux en Afrique, 3 vols. (Paris, 1903-1905); H. Mey­er, Die Eisen­bah­nen im tropis­chen Afri­ka (Leipzig, 1902); G. Gren­fell, “The Up­per Con­go as a Wa­ter­way,” Ge­ogr. Journ., Nov. 1902; A. St. H. Gib­bons, “The Nile and Zam­bezi Sys­tems as Wa­ter­ways,” Journ. R. Colon. In­st., 1901; K. Lent, “Verkehrsmit­tel in Ostafri­ka,” Deutsches Kolo­nial­blatt, 1894; “Trade of the Unit­ed King­dom with the African Con­ti­nent in 1898-1902,” Board of T. Journ., 1903; Diplo­mat­ic and Con­sular Pe­ports, An­nu­al Se­ries; Colo­nial Re­ports; T. H. Parke, Guide to Health in Africa (1893); R. W. Felkin, Ge­ograph­ical Dis­tri­bu­tion of Trop­ical Dis­eases in Africa (1895)

The fol­low­ing bib­li­ogra­phies may al­so be con­sult­ed: J. Gay, Bib­li­ogra­phie des ou­vrages re­lat­ifs a l’Afrique, &c. (San Re­mo, 1875); P. Paulitschke, Die Afri­ka-​Lit­er­atur von 1500 bis 1750 (Vi­enne, 1882); Cat­alogue of the Colo­nial Of­fice Li­brary, vol. 3, Africa (spe­cial­ly for gov­ern­ment pub­li­ca­tions). (E. HE.)

1 Where no place of pub­li­ca­tion is giv­en, Lon­don is to be un­der­stood.

AFRICA, RO­MAN. The Ro­mans gave the name of Africa to that part of the world which the Greeks called Libya (Aibbe.) It com­prised the whole of the por­tion of the African con­ti­nent known to the an­cients, ex­cept Egypt and Ethiopia. But be­sides this gen­er­al sense, which oc­curs in Pliny (iii. 3), Pom­po­nius Mela (i. 8) and oth­er au­thors, the of­fi­cial and ad­min­is­tra­tive lan­guage used the word Africa in a nar­row­er sense, which is no­ticed be­low. The term was cer­tain­ly bor­rowed by the Ro­mans from the lan­guage of the na­tives. In Latin lit­er­ature it was em­ployed for the first time by the po­et En­nius, who wrote in the in­ter­val be­tween the First and Sec­ond Punic Wars (Ann. vi.; Sat. iii.). By him the term was con­fined to the ter­ri­to­ry of Carthage and the re­gions com­pos­ing the east­ern group of the At­las. Among the nu­mer­ous con­jec­tures which have been made as to the et­ymol­ogy of the term Africa (’Afrike) may be quot­ed that which de­rives it from the Semitic rad­ical resh daleth pe (“sep­arate”), Africa be­ing con­sid­ered, in this con­nex­ion, as a Phoeni­cian set­tle­ment “sep­arat­ed” from the moth­er coun­try, Asi­at­ic Phoeni­cia. It has al­so been held that the word Africa comes from friqi, farikia (the coun­try of fruit). The best hy­poth­esis in the writ­er’s opin­ion is that main­tained by Charles Tis­sot, who sees in the word “Africa” the name of the great Berber tribe, the Aourigha (whose name would have been pro­nounced Afari­ka), the mod­ern Aouraghen, now driv­en back in­to the Sa­hara, but in an­cient times the prin­ci­pal in­dige­nous el­ement of the African em­pire of Carthage (Tis­sot, Ge­ogr. comp. i. 389). Thus Africa was orig­inal­ly, in the eyes of the Ro­mans and Carthagini­ans alike, the coun­try in­hab­it­ed by the great tribe of Berbers or Nu­mid­ians called Afarik. Cyre­naica, on the east, at­tached to Egypt, was then ex­clud­ed from it, and, sim­ilar­ly, Mau­re­ta­nia, on the west.

At the time of the Third Punic War the Africa of the Carthagini­ans was but a frag­ment of their an­cient na­tive em­pire. It com­prised the ter­ri­to­ry bound­ed by a vague line run­ning from the mouth of the Tus­ca (Wad el Ke­bir), op­po­site the is­land of Tabra­ca (Tabar­ca), as far as the town of Thenae (Tina), at the mouth of the Gulf of Gabes. The rest of Africa had passed in­to the hands of the kings of Nu­midia, who were al­lies of the Ro­mans.

Af­ter the cap­ture of Carthage by Sci­pio (146 B.C.) this ter­ri­to­ry was erect­ed in­to a Ro­man province, and a trench, the fos­sa re­gia, was dug to mark the bound­ary of the Ro­man province of Africa and the do­min­ions of the Nu­mid­ian princes. There have been dis­cov­ered (1907) the re­mains of this ditch pro­tect­ed by a low wall or a stone dyke; some of the bound­ary stones which marked its course, and in­scrip­tions men­tion­ing it, have al­so been found. From Tes­tur on the Mejer­da the fos­sa re­gia can be fol­lowed by these in­di­ca­tions for sev­er­al miles along the Jebel esh-​Sheid. The ditch ran north­ward to Tabar­ca and south­ward to Tina. The im­por­tance of the dis­cov­er­ies lies in the fact that the ditch which in lat­er times di­vid­ed the provinces of Africa ve­tus and Africa no­va was at the time of the Third Punic War the bound­ary of Carthagini­an ter­ri­to­ry (R. Cagnat, “Le fos­se des fron­tieres ro­maines” in Melanges Boissier, 1905, p. 227; L. Poinssot in Comptes ren­dus de l’Acad. des In­script. et Belles Let­tres, 1907, p. 466; Clas­si­cal Re­view, 1907, De­cem­ber, p. 255). The gov­ern­ment of the Ro­man province thus de­lim­it­ed was en­trust­ed to a prae­tor or pro­prae­tor, of whom sev­er­al are now known, e.g. P. Sex­til­ius, pro­prae­tor Africae, ac­cord­ing to coins of Hadrume­tum of the year 94 B.C. The towns which had fought on the side of the Ro­mans dur­ing the Third Punic War were de­clared civ­itates lib­er­ae, and be­came ex­ceed­ing­ly pros­per­ous. They were Uti­ca (Bu Shatir), Hadrume­tum (Susa), Thap­sus (Di­mas), Lep­tis Mi­nor (Lem­ta), Achul­la (Badria), Uza­lis (about 11 m. from Uti­ca) and Theudalis. Those towns, how­ev­er, which had re­mained faith­ful to Carthage were de­stroyed, like Carthage it­self.

Af­ter the Jugurthine war in 106, the whole of the re­gio Tripoli­tana, com­pris­ing Lep­tis Magna (Leb­da), Oea (Tripoli), Sabra­ta, and the oth­er towns on the lit­toral of the two Syrtes, ap­pears to have been an­nexed to the Ro­man province in a more or less reg­ular man­ner (Tis­sot ii. 21). The bat­tle of Thap­sus in 46 made the Ro­mans def­inite­ly mas­ters of Nu­midia, and the spheres of ad­min­is­tra­tion were clear­ly marked out. Nu­midia was con­vert­ed in­to a new province called “Africa No­va,” and of this province the his­to­ri­an Sal­lust was ap­point­ed pro­con­sul and in­vest­ed with the im­peri­um. From that time the old province of Africa was known as “Africa Ve­tus” or “Africa Pro­pria.”

This state of af­fairs, how­ev­er, last­ed but a short time. In 31 B.C. Oc­tavius gave up Nu­midia, or Africa No­va, to King Ju­ba II. Five years lat­er Au­gus­tus gave Mau­re­ta­nia and some Gae­tu­lian dis­tricts to Ju­ba, and re­ceived in ex­change Nu­midia, which thus re­vert­ed to di­rect Ro­man con­trol. Nu­midia, how­ev­er, no longer formed a dis­tinct gov­ern­ment, but was at­tached to the old province of Africa. From 25 B.C. the Ro­man province of Africa com­prised the whole of the re­gion be­tween the mouth of the Amp­saga (Wad Rum­mel, Wad el Ke­bir) on the west, and the two tu­muli called the al­tars of the Phi­laeni, the im­mutable bound­ary be­tween Tripoli­tana and Cyre­naica, on the east (Tis­sot ii. 261). In the par­ti­tion of the gov­ern­ment of the provinces of the Ro­man em­pire be­tween the sen­ate and the em­per­or, Africa fell to the sen­ate, and was hence­forth ad­min­is­tered by a pro­con­sul. Sub­or­di­nate to him were the legati pro con­sule, who were placed at the head of dis­tricts called dio­ce­ses. At first there were on­ly three dio­ce­ses: Carthaginien­sis, Hip­ponien­sis (head­quar­ters Hip­po Di­ar­rhy­tus, now Biz­er­ta), and Nu­midi­ca (head­quar­ters Cir­ta, now Con­stan­tine). At a lat­er date the dio­ce­sis Hadrumeti­na was formed, and per­haps at some date un­known the dio­ce­sis Tripoli­tana.

The province of Africa was the on­ly sen­ato­ri­al province whose gov­er­nor had orig­inal­ly been in­vest­ed with mil­itary pow­ers. The pro­con­sul of Africa, in fact, had com­mand of the le­gio III. Au­gus­ta and the aux­il­iary corps. But in A.D. 37 Caligu­la de­prived the pro­con­sul of his mil­itary pow­ers and gave them to the im­pe­ri­al legate (lega­tus Au­gusti pro prae­tore provin­ci­ae Africae), who was nom­inat­ed di­rect­ly by the em­per­or, and whose spe­cial du­ty it was to guard the fron­tier zone (Tac­itus, Mist. iv. 48; Dio Cass. lix. 20). The head­quar­ters of the im­pe­ri­al legate were orig­inal­ly at Cir­ta and af­ter­wards at Lam­bae­sa (Lambessa). The mil­itary posts were drawn up in ech­elon along the fron­tier of the desert, es­pe­cial­ly along the south­ern slopes of the Au­res, as far as Ad Ma­jores (Besse­ri­ani), and on the Tripoli­tan fron­tier as far as Cy­damus (Ghadames), form­ing an im­mense arc ex­tend­ing from Cyre­naica to Mau­re­ta­nia. A net­work of mil­itary routes, con­struct­ed and kept in re­pair by the sol­diers, led from Lam­bae­sa in all di­rec­tions, and stretched along the fron­tier as far as Lep­tis Magna, pass­ing Theveste (Tebessa), Thenae and Tacape (Gabes). The pow­ers of the pro­con­sul, how­ev­er, ex­tend­ed scarce­ly be­yond the an­cient Africa Ve­tus and the towns on the lit­toral. To­wards 194 Sep­ti­mius Severus com­plet­ed the re­form of Caligu­la by de­tach­ing from the province of Africa the greater part of Nu­midia to con­sti­tute a spe­cial province gov­erned by a procu­ra­tor, sub­or­di­nate to the im­pe­ri­al legate and res­ident at Cir­ta (Tis­sot ii. 34). This province was called Nu­midia Cirten­sis, as op­posed to Nu­midia In­fe­ri­or or pro­con­sular Nu­midia.

In Dio­cle­tian’s great re­form of the ad­min­is­tra­tive sys­tem of the em­pire, the whole of Ro­man Africa, with the ex­cep­tion of Mau­re­ta­nia Tin­gi­tana (which was at­tached to the province of Spain), con­sti­tut­ed a sin­gle dio­cese sub­di­vid­ed in­to six provinces: Zeugi­tana (Carthage), Byzaci­um (Hadrume­tum, now Susa), Nu­midia Cirten­sis (Cir­ta, Con­stan­tine), Tripoli­tana (Tripo­lis), Mau­re­ta­nia Sitifen­sis (Siti­fis, Setif), and Mau­re­ta­nia Cae­sarien­sis (Cae­sarea, now Cherchel). These provinces were ad­min­is­tered, ac­cord­ing to cir­cum­stances, by a prae­ses of sen­ato­ri­al rank, a lega­tus pro prae­tore, or a vir claris­simus con­sularis. Some changes were even­tu­al­ly ne­ces­si­tat­ed by the wars with the Moors and the Van­dals. By a treaty con­clud­ed in 476, the em­per­or Zeno rec­og­nized Genser­ic as mas­ter of all Africa. Re­con­quered by Belis­ar­ius in 534, Africa formed, un­der the name of prae­fec­tura Africae, one of the great ad­min­is­tra­tive dis­tricts of the Byzan­tine em­pire. It was sub­di­vid­ed in­to six provinces, which were placed un­der the au­thor­ity of the prae­to­ri­an pre­fect of Africa. These provinces were Zeugi­tana (the for­mer Pro­con­sularis), Carthage, Byzaci­um, Tripoli­tana, Nu­midia and Mau­re­ta­nia. The civ­il gov­ern­ment was car­ried on by con­sulares or prae­sides, while the mil­itary gov­ern­ment was in the hands of four duces mil­itum, who made stren­uous ef­forts to drive out the bar­bar­ians. The coun­try was stud­ded thick­ly with bur­gi (small forts) and clausurae (long walls), the ru­ins of which still sub­sist. In 647 the Arabs pen­etrat­ed in­to Ifrikia, which was des­tined to fall for ev­er out of the grasp of the Ro­mans. In 697 Carthage was tak­en.

The bulk of the pop­ula­tion of Ro­man Africa was in­vari­ably com­posed of three chief el­ements: the in­dige­nous Berber tribes, the an­cient Carthagini­ans of Phoeni­cian ori­gin and the Ro­man colonists. The Berber tribes, whose racial uni­ty is at­test­ed by their com­mon spo­ken lan­guage and by the com­par­ative­ly nu­mer­ous Berber in­scrip­tions that have come down to us, bore in an­cient times the gener­ic names of Nu­mid­ians, Gae­tu­lians and Moors or Mau­ru­siani. Herodotus men­tions a great num­ber of these tribes. Dur­ing the Ro­man pe­ri­od, ac­cord­ing to Pliny, there were set­tle­ments of 26 in­dige­nous tribes ex­tend­ing from the Amp­saga as far as Cyre­naica. The much more de­tailed list of Ptole­my enu­mer­ates 39 in­dige­nous tribes in the province of Africa and 25 in Mau­re­ta­nia Cae­sarien­sis. Am­mi­anus Mar­celli­nus, Pro­copius and Flav­ius Cresco­nius Corip­pus give still fur­ther names. Be­sides the Afri (Aourigha) of the ter­ri­to­ry of Carthage, the prin­ci­pal tribes that took part in the wars against the Ro­mans were the Lo­topha­gi, the Gara­mantes, the Maces, the Nasa­mones in the re­gions of the S.E., the Misu­lani or Musu­lamii (whence the name Mus­sul­man), the Mas­syli and the Mas­sae­syli in the E., who were neigh­bours of the Moors. The non-​no­mads of these Libyan tribes dwelt in huts made of stakes sup­port­ing plait­ed mats of rush or as­pho­del. These dwellings, which were called ma­palia, are the mod­ern gour­bis. African epig­ra­phy has re­vealed the names of some of their deities: deus in­vic­tus Aulis­va; the god Mot­ma­nius, as­so­ci­at­ed with Mer­cury; the god Lilleus; Baldir Au­gus­tus; Kau­tus pa­ter; the god­dess Gil­va, iden­ti­fied with Tel­lus, and Ifru Au­gus­tus (Tis­sot i. 486). The Jo­han­nis of Corip­pus men­tions three na­tive di­vini­ties: Sinifere, Mas­ti­man and Gurzil. There were al­so lo­cal di­vini­ties in all the prin­ci­pal dis­tricts. The rock bas-​re­liefs and oth­er mon­uments show­ing na­tive di­vini­ties are rare, and give on­ly very sum­ma­ry rep­re­sen­ta­tions. Dol­mens, how­ev­er, oc­cur in great num­bers in Tunisia and the province of Con­stan­tine. Tu­muli, too, are found through­out north­ern Africa, the most cel­ebrat­ed be­ing that near Cherchel, the Kubr-​er-​Ru­mia (“tomb of the Chris­tian la­dy”), which was re­gard­ed by Pom­po­nius Mela as the roy­al bury­ing-​place of the kings of Nu­midia.

Dur­ing the Ro­man pe­ri­od the an­cient Carthagini­ans of Phoeni­cian ori­gin and the bas­tard pop­ula­tion termed by an­cient au­thors Libyo-​Phoeni­cians, like the mod­ern Mal­tese, in­vari­ably formed the pre­dom­inant pop­ula­tion of the towns on the lit­toral, and re­tained the Punic lan­guage un­til the 6th cen­tu­ry of the Chris­tian era. The mu­nic­ipal mag­is­trates took the ti­tle of suf­fetes in place of that of du­umvirs, and in cer­tain towns the Chris­tian bish­ops were obliged to know the lin­gua Puni­ca, since it was the on­ly lan­guage that the peo­ple un­der­stood. Nev­er­the­less, the Ro­man func­tionar­ies, the army and the colonists from Italy soon brought the Latin el­ement in­to Africa, where it flour­ished with such vigour that, in the 3rd cen­tu­ry, Carthage be­came the cen­tre of a Ro­mano-​African civ­iliza­tion of ex­traor­di­nary lit­er­ary bril­lian­cy, which num­bered among its lead­ers such men as Apuleius, Ter­tul­lian, Arnobius, Cypri­an, Au­gus­tine and many oth­ers.

Carthage re­gained its rank of cap­ital of Africa un­der Au­gus­tus, when thou­sands of Ro­man colonists flocked to the town. Uti­ca be­came a Ro­man colony un­der Hadri­an, and the civ­itates lib­er­ae, mu­nicip­ia, castel­la, pa­gi and tur­res were peo­pled with Latins. The towns of the an­cient province of Africa which re­ceived colo­ni­ae were very nu­mer­ous: Abiten­sis (civ­itas Avit­ten­sis Bib­ba), Bisi­ca Lu­cana (Tas­tour), Byzaci­um, Cap­sa (Gafsa), Carthage, Cuina, Cu­ru­bis (Kur­ba), Hadrume­tum (Susa), Hip­po Di­ar­rhy­tus or Zary­tus (Biz­er­ta), Lep­tis Magna (Leb­da), Max­ula (Ghades, Rades or Gades), Neapo­lis (Nabel, Nebeul), Oea (Tripoli), Sabra­ta (Zoara), colo­nia Scil­li­tana (Ghas­rin), Sufes (Sbi­ba), Tacape (Gabes), Thae­nae or Thenae (Tina), Thelepte (Medinet Ked­ima), Thug­ga (Dug­ga), Thubur­bo maius (Kas­bat), Thys­drus (El Jem), Uthi­na (Wad­na) and Val­lis (Me­di­an). Of the mu­nicip­ia may be men­tioned Gigth­is or Gigthi (Bu Grara), Thibus­si­cen­si­um Bu­re (Tebur­suk), Zi­ta and the tur­ris Tamal­leni (Telmin).

The province of Nu­midia was at first col­onized prin­ci­pal­ly by the mil­itary set­tle­ments of the Ro­mans. Cir­ta (Con­stan­tine) and Bul­la Re­gia(Ham­mam Dar­raj), its chief towns, re­ceived colo­ni­ae of sol­diers and vet­er­ans, as well as Theveste (Tebessa) and Thamu­gas (Tim­gad). The fine ru­ins which have been dis­cov­ered at the last-​men­tioned place have earned for it the sur­name of the African Pom­peii (see be­low).

Ar­chae­ol­ogy.–Ro­man Africa has been the sub­ject of in­nu­mer­able his­tor­ical and ar­chae­olog­ical re­search­es, es­pe­cial­ly since the con­quest of Al­ge­ria and Tunisia by the French. The coun­try is cov­ered with Ro­man and Byzan­tine re­mains. Each of these ru­ins has been vis­it­ed by ar­chae­ol­ogists who have copied in­scrip­tions, de­scribed the tem­ples, tri­umphal arch­es, por­ti­cos, mau­soleums and the oth­er mon­uments which are still stand­ing, col­lect­ed stat­ues or oth­er an­tiq­ui­ties; and in many cas­es they have ac­tu­al­ly ex­ca­vat­ed. The re­sults of all these labours have been pub­lished, from about 1850 on­wards, an­nu­al­ly, and, in­deed, al­most from day to day, in var­ious sci­en­tif­ic pe­ri­od­icals. Among the prin­ci­pal of these are:–Mem­oires de la So­ci­ete arche­ologique de Con­stan­tine, Bul­letin de la So­ci­ete ge­ographique et arche­ologique d’Oran, Re­vue africaine of Al­giers, to which we should add the Re­vue arche­ologique of Paris, the Archives des mis­sions sci­en­tifiques and the Bul­letin arche­ologique du Comite des travaux his­toriques and the Melanges of the French School at Rome. In all the towns of Al­ge­ria and Tunisia mu­se­ums have been found­ed for stor­ing the an­tiq­ui­ties of the re­gion; the most im­por­tant of these are the mu­se­ums of St Louis, Carthage and the palace of Bar­do (musee Alaoui) near Tu­nis, those of Susa, Con­stan­tine, Lambessa, Tim­gad, Tebessa, Philippeville, Cherchel and Oran. Un­der the ti­tle of Musees et col­lec­tions arche­ologiques de l’Al­gerie et de la Tunisie, the Min­istry of Pub­lic In­struc­tion pub­lish­es from time to time il­lus­trat­ed de­scrip­tions of all these ar­chae­olog­ical trea­sures. In this col­lec­tion have al­ready ap­peared de­scrip­tions of the mu­se­ums of Al­giers by G. Dou­blet; of Con­stan­tine by G. Dou­blet and P. Gauck­ler; of Oran by R. de La Blanchere; of Cherchel by P. Gauck­ler; of Lambessa by R. Cagnat; of Philippeville by S. Gsell and Bertrand; of the Bar­do by R. de La Blanchere and P. Gauck­ler; of Carthage by R. P. De­lat­tre; of Tebessa by S. Gsell; of Susa by P. Gauck­ler; of Tim­gad by R. Cagnat and A. Bal­lu.

The ar­chae­olog­ical ex­plo­ration of Al­ge­ria has kept pace with the ex­pan­sion of French do­min­ion. From 1846 to 1854 De­la­marre pub­lished his Ex­plo­ration arche­ologique de l’Al­gerie, in col­lab­ora­tion with the French of­fi­cers. In 1850 Leon Re­nier was of­fi­cial­ly in­struct­ed to col­lect all the in­scrip­tions in Al­ge­ria which should be found by the mil­itary ex­pe­di­tionary columns. This schol­ar ex­am­ined first the ru­ins of Lambessa, an ac­count of which he pub­lished in 1854 in his Melanges d’epigra­phie; sub­se­quent­ly he made his im­por­tant col­lec­tion of In­scrip­tions ro­maines de l’Al­gerie (1855-1858) which formed the ground­work of the vol­ume of the Cor­pus In­scr. Lat. of the Acade­my of Berlin, de­vot­ed to Ro­man Africa. A lit­tle lat­er Gen­er­al Faid­herbe pub­lished his Col­lec­tion com­plete des in­scrip­tions nu­midiques (1870). Apart from the province of Con­stan­tine, Al­ge­ria is less rich in Ro­man re­mains than Tunisia; men­tion must, how­ev­er, be made of the ex­ca­va­tions of Vic­tor Waille at Cherchel, where were found fine stat­ues in the Greek style of the time of King Ju­ba II.; of P. Gavault at Tigzirt (Rusuc­cu­ru), and fi­nal­ly of those of Stephane Gsell at Tipasa (basil­ica of St Sal­sa) and through­out the dis­trict of Setif and at Khamis­sa (Thubur­ticum Nu­mi­darum). In the de­part­ment of Con­stan­tine, which is pe­cu­liar­ly rich in Ro­man re­mains, Tebessa has been most care­ful­ly ex­plored by M. Heron de Ville­fos­se, who has laid bare a beau­ti­ful tem­ple of Jupiter, a tri­umphal arch of Cara­calla, a Byzan­tine basil­ica and the gate of the Byzan­tine gen­er­al Solomon. But all these ru­ins fade in­to in­signif­icance in com­par­ison with the ma­jes­tic grandeur of those of Tim­gad which are al­most en­tire­ly laid bare; they are de­scribed in Tim­gad, une cite africaine sous l’em­pire ro­main, by R. Cagnat, G. Boeswill­wald and A. Bal­lu.

In Tunisia, Carthage ear­ly be­came the ob­ject of ar­chae­olog­ical in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Ma­jor Hum­bert was sent there by Napoleon in 1808 and his notes are still pre­served in the mu­se­um of Lei­den. Chateaubriand vis­it­ed and de­scribed the ru­ins; the Dane Falbe, the En­glish­man Nathan Davis, Beule, P. de Sainte-​Marie and oth­ers al­so have car­ried out re­search­es; for more than twen­ty years Pere De­lat­tre has ex­plored the ru­ins of Carthage (q.v.) with ex­traor­di­nary suc­cess. For the rest of Tunisia, the first ex­plor­er in­ter­est­ed in ar­chae­ol­ogy was Vic­tor Guerin in 1860; his re­sults are con­tained in his re­mark­able Voy­age arche­ologique dans la Re­gence de Tu­nis (1862, 2 vols.). A. Daux, in the years pre­ced­ing 1869, ex­plored the sites of the an­cient har­bours of Uti­ca, Hadrume­tum, Thap­sus (Di­mas). But it was the oc­cu­pa­tion of Tunisia by the French in 1881 which re­al­ly gave the im­pe­tus to mod­ern in­ves­ti­ga­tions in this dis­trict of ru­ined cities. They were put on a sol­id foun­da­tion by the pub­li­ca­tion of the Ge­ogra­phie com­pa­ree of Charles Tis­sot (1884). Trained schol­ars were sent there an­nu­al­ly by the French gov­ern­ment: Cagnat, Sal­adin, Poinssot, La Blanchere, S. Reinach, E. Ba­be­lon, Car­ton, Au­dol­lent, Steph. Gsell, J. Toutain, Es­perandieu, Gauck­ler, Mer­lin, Ho­mo and many oth­ers, to say noth­ing of Ger­man schol­ars, such as Will­mans and Schul­ten, and es­pe­cial­ly of a great num­ber of en­thu­si­as­tic of­fi­cers of the army of oc­cu­pa­tion, who ex­plored all the an­cient sites, and in many cas­es ex­ca­vat­ed with great suc­cess (for their re­sults see the works quot­ed above). It would be im­pos­si­ble to enu­mer­ate here all the mono­graphs de­scrib­ing, for ex­am­ple, the ru­ins of Carthage, those of the tem­ple of the wa­ters at Mount Za­ghuan, the am­phithe­atre of El Jem (Thys­drus), the tem­ple of Sat­urn, the roy­al tomb and the the­atre of Dug­ga (Thug­ga), the bridge of Chem­tu (Simit­thu), the ru­ins and ceme­ter­ies of Tebur­suk and Medeina (Al­th­ibu­rus), the rich vil­la of the Laberii at Wad­na (Uthi­na), the sanc­tu­ary of Sat­urn Bal­cara­nen­sis on the hill called Bu-​Ko­rnain, the ru­ins of the dis­trict of En­fi­da (Aphro­di­si­um, Up­pen­na, Segermes), those of Lep­tis mi­nor (Lem­ta), of Thenae (near Sfax), those of the is­land of Meninx (Jer­ba), of the penin­su­la of Zarzis, of Mac­tar, Sbeit­la (Sufe­tu­la), Gigth­is (Bu-​Grara), Gafsa (Cap­sa), Kef (Sic­ca Vene­ria), Bul­la Re­gia, &c.

From this ac­cu­mu­la­tion of re­sults most valu­able ev­idence as to the his­to­ry and more es­pe­cial­ly the in­ter­nal ad­min­is­tra­tion of Africa un­der the Ro­mans has been de­rived. In par­tic­ular we know how ru­ral life was there de­vel­oped, and with what care the wa­ter nec­es­sary for the grow­ing of ce­re­als was ev­ery­where pro­vid­ed. Sculp­ture through­out the dis­trict is very provin­cial and of mi­nor im­por­tance; the on­ly ex­cep­tions are cer­tain stat­ues found at Carthage and Cherchel, the cap­ital of the Mau­re­ta­ni­an kings.

AU­THOR­ITIES.–Among gen­er­al works on the sub­ject may be men­tioned: Mor­cel­li, Africa chris­tiana (1816); Gus­tave Boissiere, L’Al­gerie ro­maine (2nd ed., 1883); E. Merci­er, His­toire de l’Afrique septen­tri­onale (1888); Charles Tis­sot, Ge­ogra­phie com­pa­ree de la province ro­maine d’Afrique (1884-1888), with at­las; Vivien de Saint-​Mar­tin, Le Nord de l’Afrique dans l’an­tiq­uite grecque et ro­maine (1883); Gas­ton Boissier, L’Afrique ro­maine (1895); Cl. Pal­lu de Lessert, Fastes des provinces africaines (Pro­con­sulaire, Nu­mi­die, Mau­re­tainie) sous la dom­ina­tion ro­maine (1896-1901); R. Cagnat, L’Armee ro­maine d’Afrique (1892); A. Daux, Les Em­po­ria pheni­ciens dans le Zeugis et le Byzaci­um (1869); Lud­wig Muller, Nu­mis­ma­tique de l’an­ci­enne Afrique (1860-1862; Sup­ple­ment, 1874); Ch. Diehl, L’Afrique byzan­tine (1896); Stephane Gsell, Recherch­es arche­ologiques en Afrique (1893); Paul Mon­ceaux, His­toire lit­teraire de l’Afrique chre­ti­enne (1901-1905); J. Toutain, Les Cites ro­maines de la Tunisie (1895); At­las arche­ologique de la Tunisie, pub­lished by the Min­istry of Pub­lic In­struc­tion (1895 foll.); At­las arche­ologique de l’Al­gerie, pub­lished by Stephane Gsell (1900 foll.); Toulotte, Ge­ogra­phie de l’Afrique chre­ti­enne (1892-1894); Cor­pus in­scrip­tion­um la­tiniarum, vol. vi­ii. and Sup­ple­ment (1881). Cf. al­so ar­ti­cles CARTHAGE, NU­MIDIA, &c., JUGURTHA, and ar­ti­cles re­lat­ing to Ro­man His­to­ry. (E. B.n)

AFRICAN LILY (Aga­pan­thus um­bel­la­tus), a mem­ber of the nat­ural or­der Lil­iaceae, a na­tive of the Cape of Good Hope, whence it was in­tro­duced at the close of the 17th cen­tu­ry. It is a hand­some green­house plant, which is hardy in the south of Eng­land and Ire­land if pro­tect­ed from se­vere frosts. It has a short stem bear­ing a tuft of long, nar­row, arch­ing leaves, 1/2 to 2 ft. long, and a cen­tral flow­er-​stalk, 2 to 3 ft. high, end­ing in an um­bel of bright blue, fun­nel-​shaped flow­ers. The plants are easy to cul­ti­vate, and are gen­er­al­ly grown in large pots or tubs which can be pro­tect­ed from frost in win­ter. Dur­ing the sum­mer they re­quire plen­ty of wa­ter, and are very ef­fec­tive on the mar­gins of lakes or run­ning streams, where they thrive ad­mirably. They in­crease by off­sets, or may be prop­agat­ed by di­vid­ing the root-​stock in ear­ly spring or au­tumn. A num­ber of forms are known in cul­ti­va­tion; such are al­bidus, with white flow­ers, au­reus, with leaves striped with yel­low, and var­ie­ga­tus, with leaves al­most en­tire­ly white with a few green bands. There are al­so dou­ble-​flow­ered and larg­er and small­er flow­ered forms.

AFRICANUS, SEX­TUS JULIUS, a Chris­tian trav­eller and his­to­ri­an of the 3rd cen­tu­ry, was prob­ably born in Libya, and may have served un­der Sep­ti­mius Severus against the Os­rhoe­ni­ans in A.D. 195. Lit­tle is known of his per­son­al his­to­ry, ex­cept that he lived at Em­maus, and that he went on an em­bassy to the em­per­or He­li­oga­balus1 to ask for the restora­tion of the town, which had fall­en in­to ru­ins. His mis­sion suc­ceed­ed, and Em­maus was hence­for­ward known as Nicopo­lis. Diony­sius bar-​Sal­ibi makes him a bish­op, but prob­ably he was not even a pres­byter. He wrote a his­to­ry of the world(Chrono­grafi­ai, in five books) from the cre­ation to the year A.D. 221, a pe­ri­od, ac­cord­ing to his com­pu­ta­tion, of 5723 years. He cal­cu­lat­ed the pe­ri­od be­tween the cre­ation and the birth of Christ as 5499 years, and ante-​dat­ed the lat­ter event by three years. This method of reck­on­ing be­came known as the Alexan­dri­an era, and was adopt­ed by al­most all the east­ern church­es. The his­to­ry, which had an apolo­get­ic aim, is no longer ex­tant, but co­pi­ous ex­tracts from it are to be found in the Chron­icon of Eu­se­bius, who used it ex­ten­sive­ly in com­pil­ing the ear­ly epis­co­pal lists. There are al­so frag­ments in Syn­cel­lus, Ce­drenus and the Paschale Chron­icon. Eu­se­bius (Hist. Ecc. i. 7, cf. vi. 31) gives some ex­tracts from his let­ter to one Aris­tides, rec­on­cil­ing the ap­par­ent dis­crep­an­cy be­tween Matthew and Luke in the ge­neal­ogy of Christ by a ref­er­ence to the Jew­ish law, which com­pelled a man to mar­ry the wid­ow of his de­ceased broth­er, if the lat­ter died with­out is­sue. His terse and per­ti­nent let­ter to Ori­gen, im­pugn­ing the au­thor­ity of the apoc­ryphal book of Su­san­na, and Ori­gen’s wordy and un­crit­ical an­swer, are both ex­tant. The as­crip­tion to Africanus of an en­cy­clopaedic work en­ti­tled Kestoi (em­broi­dered gir­dles), treat­ing of agri­cul­ture, nat­ural his­to­ry, mil­itary sci­ence, &c., has been need­less­ly dis­put­ed on ac­count of its sec­ular and of­ten cred­ulous char­ac­ter. Ne­an­der sug­gests that it was writ­ten by Africanus be­fore he had de­vot­ed him­self to re­li­gious sub­jects. For a new frag­ment of this work see Oxyrhynchus Pa­pyri (Gren­fell and Hunt), iii. 36 ff.

AU­THOR­ITIES.–Edi­tion in M. J. Routh, Rel. Sac. ii. 219-509; trans­la­tion in Ante-​Nicene Fa­thers (S. D. F. Salmond) vi. 125-140. See H. Gelz­er, Sex. Jul. Africanus und die byzant. Chrono­gra­phie, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1880-1885); G. Kruger, Ear­ly Chris­tian Lit­er­ature, 248-253; A. Har­nack, Altchristl. Litt. Gesch. i. 507, ii. 70.

1 So Eu­se­bius. Syn­cel­lus says Alexan­der Severus.

AFRI­DI, a Pathan tribe in­hab­it­ing the moun­tains on the Pe­shawar bor­der of the North-​West Fron­tier province of In­dia. The Afridis are the most pow­er­ful and in­de­pen­dent tribe on the bor­der, and the largest with the ex­cep­tion of the Waziris. Their spe­cial coun­try is the low­er and east­ern­most spurs of the Safed Koh range, to the west and south of the Pe­shawar dis­trict, in­clud­ing the Bazar and Bara val­leys. On their east they are bound­ed by British dis­tricts, on the north by the Mohmands, on the west by the Shin­waris and on the south by the Orakzai and Ban­gash tribes. Their ori­gin is ob­scure, but they are said to have Is­raeli­tish blood in their veins, and they have a de­cid­ed­ly Semitic cast of fea­tures. They are pos­si­bly the Apary­tai of Herodotus, the names and po­si­tions be­ing iden­ti­cal. If this the­ory is cor­rect, they were then a pow­er­ful peo­ple, and held a large tract of coun­try, but have been grad­ual­ly driv­en back by the en­croach­ments of oth­er tribes. The tribe is di­vid­ed in­to the fol­low­ing eight clans:–Ku­ki Khel, Ma­likdin Khel, Kam­bar Khel, Ka­mar Khel, Za­kka Khel (the most nu­mer­ous and the most tur­bu­lent), Sipah, Aka Khel and Adam Khel. The first sev­en clans live in the vicin­ity of the Khy­ber Pass, and mi­grate to Tirah in the sum­mer months. The Adam Khel (5900 fight­ing men) live round the Ko­hat Pass, and are more set­tled and less mi­gra­to­ry in their habits. In ap­pear­ance the Afri­di is a fine, tall, ath­let­ic high­lander with a long, gaunt face, high nose and cheek-​bones, and a fair com­plex­ion. On his own hill­side he is one of the finest skir­mish­ers in the world, and in the In­di­an army makes a first-​rate sol­dier, but he is apt to be home-​sick when re­moved from the air of his na­tive moun­tains. In char­ac­ter the Afri­di has ob­tained an evil name for fe­roc­ity, craft and treach­ery, but Colonel Sir Robert War­bur­ton, who lived eigh­teen years in charge of the Khy­ber Pass and knew the Afri­di bet­ter than any oth­er En­glish­man, says:–“The Afri­di lad from his ear­li­est child­hood is taught by the cir­cum­stances of his ex­is­tence and life to dis­trust all mankind, and very of­ten his near re­la­tions, heirs to his small plot of land by right of in­her­itance, are his dead­li­est en­emies. Dis­trust of all mankind, and readi­ness to strike the first blow for the safe­ty of his own life, have there­fore be­come the max­ims of the Afri­di. If you can over­come this mis­trust, and be kind in words to him, he will re­pay you by a great de­vo­tion, and he will put up with any treat­ment you like to give him ex­cept abuse.” In short the Afri­di has the vices and virtues of all Pathans in an en­hanced de­gree. The fight­ing strength of the Afridis is said to be 27,000, but this es­ti­mate is ex­ces­sive, judged by the num­ber and size of their vil­lages. They de­rive their im­por­tance from their ge­ograph­ical po­si­tion, which gives them com­mand of the Khy­ber and Ko­hat roads, and the his­to­ry of the British con­nex­ion with them has been al­most en­tire­ly with ref­er­ence to these two pass­es.

There have been sev­er­al British ex­pe­di­tions against the sep­arate clans:–

(1) Ex­pe­di­tion against the Ko­hat Pass Afridis un­der Sir Col­in Camp­bell in 1850. The British con­nex­ion with the Adam Khel Afridis com­menced im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the an­nex­ation of the Pe­shawar and Ko­hat dis­tricts. Fol­low­ing the ex­am­ple of all pre­vi­ous rulers of the coun­try, the British agreed to pay the tribe a sub­sidy to pro­tect the pass. But in 1850 a thou­sand Afridis at­tacked a body of sap­pers en­gaged in mak­ing the road, killing twelve and wound­ing six. It was sup­posed that they dis­liked the mak­ing of a road which would lay open their fast­ness­es to reg­ular troops. An ex­pe­di­tion of 3200 British troops was despatched, which tra­versed the coun­try and pun­ished them.

(2) Ex­pe­di­tion against the Jowa­ki Afridis of the Bori vil­lages in 1853. When the Afridis of the Ko­hat Pass mis­be­haved in 1850, the Jowa­ki Afridis of­fered the use of their route in­stead; but they turned out worse than the oth­ers, and in 1853 a force of 1700 British tra­versed their coun­try and de­stroyed their stronghold at Bori. The Jowa­ki Afridis are a clan of the Adam Khel, who in­hab­it the coun­try ly­ing be­tween the Ko­hat Pass and the riv­er In­dus.

(3) Ex­pe­di­tion against the Aka Khel Afridis un­der Colonel Craigie in 1855. In 1854 the Aka Khels, not find­ing them­selves ad­mit­ted to a share of the al­lowances of the Ko­hat Pass, com­menced a se­ries of raids on the Pe­shawar bor­der and at­tacked a British camp. An ex­pe­di­tion of 1500 troops en­tered the coun­try and in­flict­ed se­vere pun­ish­ment on the tribe, who made their sub­mis­sion and paid a fine.

(4) Ex­pe­di­tion against the Jowa­ki Afridis un­der Colonel Mo­cat­ta in 1877. In that year the gov­ern­ment pro­posed to re­duce the Jowa­ki al­lowance for guard­ing the Ko­hat Pass, and the tribes­men re­sent­ed this by cut­ting the tele­graph wire and raid­ing in­to British ter­ri­to­ry. A force of 1500 troops pen­etrat­ed their coun­try in three columns, and did con­sid­er­able dam­age by way of pun­ish­ment.

(5) Ex­pe­di­tion against the Jowa­ki Afridis un­der Brigadier-​Gen­er­al Keyes in 1877-78. The pun­ish­ment in­flict­ed by the pre­vi­ous ex­pe­di­tion did not prove suf­fi­cient­ly se­vere, the at­ti­tude of the Jowakis con­tin­ued the same and their raids in­to British ter­ri­to­ry went on. A much stronger force, there­fore, of 7400 British troops, di­vid­ed in­to three columns, de­stroyed their prin­ci­pal vil­lages and oc­cu­pied their coun­try for some time, un­til the tribe sub­mit­ted and ac­cept­ed gov­ern­ment terms. The Ko­hat Pass was af­ter­wards prac­ti­cal­ly undis­turbed.

(6) Ex­pe­di­tion against the Za­kka Khel Afridis of the Bazar Val­ley un­der Brigadier-​Gen­er­al Tytler in 1878. At the time of the British ad­vance in­to Afghanistan, dur­ing the sec­ond Afghan War, the Za­kka Khel op­posed the British ad­vance and at­tacked their out­posts. A force of 2500 British troops tra­versed their coun­try, and the tribes­men made their sub­mis­sion.

(7) Ex­pe­di­tion against the Za­kka Khel Afridis of the Bazar Val­ley un­der Lieu­tenant-​Gen­er­al Maude in 1879. Af­ter the pre­vi­ous ex­pe­di­tion the Afridis of the Khy­ber Pass con­tin­ued to give trou­ble dur­ing the progress of the sec­ond Afghan War, so an­oth­er force of 3750 British troops tra­versed their coun­try, and af­ter suf­fer­ing some loss the tribes­men made their sub­mis­sion. Af­ter this both the Khy­ber and Ko­hat Pass­es were put on a sta­ble foot­ing, and no fur­ther trou­ble of any con­se­quence oc­curred in ei­ther down to the time of the fron­tier ris­ings of 1897, when the Afridis at­tacked the Khy­ber Pass, which was de­fend­ed by Afri­di levies.

(8) For the Tirah Cam­paign of 1897 see TIRAH CAM­PAIGN.

(9) In the Febru­ary of 1908 the rest­less­ness of the Za­kka Khel again made a British ex­pe­di­tion nec­es­sary, un­der Sir James Will­cocks; but the cam­paign was speed­ily end­ed, though in the fol­low­ing April he had again to pro­ceed against the Mohmands, the sit­ua­tion be­ing com­pli­cat­ed by an in­cur­sion from Afghanistan.

See al­so Paget and Ma­son’s Fron­tier Ex­pe­di­tions (1884); War­bur­ton’s Eigh­teen Years in the Khy­ber (1900). (C. L.)

AF­TER­GLOW, a broad high arch of whitish or rosy light ap­pear­ing oc­ca­sion­al­ly in the sky above the high­est clouds in the hour of deep­en­ing twi­light, or re­flect­ed from the high snow­fields in moun­tain re­gions long af­ter sun­set. The phe­nomenon is due to very fine par­ti­cles of dust sus­pend­ed in the high re­gions of the at­mo­sphere that pro­duce a scat­ter­ing ef­fect up­on the com­po­nent parts of white light. Af­ter the erup­tion of Kraka­toa in 1883, a re­mark­able se­ries of red sun­sets ap­peared all over the world. These were due to an enor­mous amount of ex­ceed­ing­ly fine dust blown to a great height by that ter­rif­ic ex­plo­sion, and then uni­ver­sal­ly dif­fused by the high at­mo­spher­ic cur­rents.

AFZELIUS, ADAM (1750-1837), Swedish botanist, was born at Larf, Vester­got­land, in 1750. He was ap­point­ed teach­er of ori­en­tal lan­guages at Up­sala in 1777, and in 1785 demon­stra­tor of botany. From 1792 he spent some years on the west coast of Africa, and in 1797-1798 act­ed as sec­re­tary of the Swedish em­bassy in Lon­don. Re­turn­ing to Swe­den, he found­ed the Lin­naean in­sti­tute at Up­sala in 1802, and in 1812 be­came pro­fes­sor of ma­te­ria med­ica at the uni­ver­si­ty. He died at Up­sala in 1837. In ad­di­tion to var­ious botan­ical writ­ings, he pub­lished the au­to­bi­og­ra­phy of Lin­naeus in 1823.

His broth­er, JO­HAN AFZELIUS (1753-1837),known as ARVID­SON, was pro­fes­sor of chem­istry at Up­sala; and an­oth­er broth­er, PER AF (1760-1843), who be­came pro­fes­sor of medicine at Up­sala in 1801, was dis­tin­guished as a med­ical teach­er and prac­ti­tion­er.

AFZELIUS, ARVID AU­GUST (1785-1871), Swedish pas­tor, po­et, his­to­ri­an and mythol­ogist, was born on the 8th of Oc­to­ber 1785. From 1828 till his death on the 25th of Septem­ber 1871 he was parish priest of Enkop­ing. He is main­ly known as a col­lab­ora­tor with the learned his­to­ri­an, Erik Gustaf Gei­jer, in the great col­lec­tion of Swedish folk-​songs, Svenske folkir­sor fran forn­ti­den, 3 vols. (Stock­holm, 1814-1816). He pub­lished al­so trans­la­tions of the Samunder Ed­da and Her­wara-​Saga, and a his­to­ry of Swe­den to Charles XII. (of which a Ger­man trans­la­tion was pub­lished in 1842), as well as orig­inal po­ems.

AGA, or AGHA, a word, said to be of Tatar ori­gin, sig­ni­fy­ing a dig­ni­tary or lord. Among the Turks it is ap­plied to the chief of the janis­saries, to the com­man­ders of the ar­tillery, cav­al­ry and in­fantry, and to the eu­nuchs in charge of the seraglio. It is al­so em­ployed gen­er­al­ly as a term of re­spect in ad­dress­ing wealthy men of leisure, landown­ers, &c.

AGA­IAMBO, or AGAUM­BU, a race of dwarf marsh-​dwellers in British New Guinea, now al­most ex­tinct. In his an­nu­al re­port for 1904 the act­ing ad­min­is­tra­tor of British New Guinea stat­ed that on a vis­it he paid to their dis­trict he saw six males and four fe­males. The Aga­iambo live in huts erect­ed on piles in the lakes and marsh­es. Dwarfish in stature but broad­ly built, they are re­mark­able for the short­ness of their legs. They live al­most en­tire­ly in their “dug-​outs” or ca­noes, or ac­tu­al­ly wad­ing in the wa­ter. Their food con­sists of sa­go, the roots of the wa­ter-​lily and fish. The Aga­iambo are be­lieved to have been for­mer­ly nu­mer­ous, but with­in the last few years have suf­fered from the raids of their can­ni­bal­is­tic Papuan neigh­bours. In fea­tures, colour and hair they close­ly re­sem­ble the true Papuans.

AGA KHAN I., HIS HIGH­NESS THE (1800-1881), the ti­tle ac­cord­ed by gen­er­al con­sent to HASAN ALI SHAH (born in Per­sia, 1800), when, in ear­ly life, he first set­tled in Bom­bay un­der the pro­tec­tion of the British gov­ern­ment. He was be­lieved to have de­scend­ed in di­rect line from Ali by his wife Fa­ti­ma, the daugh­ter of the Prophet Ma­homet. Ali’s son, Ho­sain, hav­ing mar­ried a daugh­ter of one of the rulers of Per­sia be­fore the time of Ma­homet, the Aga Khan traced his de­scent from the roy­al house of Per­sia from the most re­mote, al­most pre­his­toric, times. His an­ces­tors had al­so ruled in Egypt as caliphs of the Beni-​Fa­timites for a num­ber of years, at a pe­ri­od co­eval with the Cru­sades. Be­fore the Aga Khan em­igrat­ed from Per­sia, he was ap­point­ed by the em­per­or Fateh Ali Shah to be gov­er­nor-​gen­er­al of the ex­ten­sive and im­por­tant province of Ker­man. His rule was not­ed for firm­ness, mod­er­ation and high po­lit­ical sagac­ity, and he suc­ceed­ed for a long time in re­tain­ing the friend­ship and con­fi­dence of his mas­ter the shah, al­though his ca­reer was be­set with po­lit­ical in­trigues and jeal­ousy on the part of ri­val and court favourites, and with in­ter­nal tur­bu­lence. At last, how­ev­er, the fate usu­al to states­men in ori­en­tal coun­tries over­took him, and he in­curred the mor­tal dis­plea­sure of Fateh Ali Shah. He fled from Per­sia and sought pro­tec­tion in British ter­ri­to­ry, pre­fer­ring to set­tle down even­tu­al­ly in In­dia, mak­ing Bom­bay his head­quar­ters. At that pe­ri­od the first Afghan War was at its height, and in cross­ing over from Per­sia through Afghanistan the Aga Khan found op­por­tu­ni­ties of ren­der­ing valu­able ser­vices to the British army, and thus cast in his lot for ev­er with the British. A few years lat­er he ren­dered sim­ilar con­spic­uous ser­vices in the course of the Sind cam­paign, when his help was uti­lized by Napi­er in the pro­cess of sub­du­ing the fron­tier tribes, a large num­ber of whom ac­knowl­edged the Aga’s au­thor­ity as their spir­itu­al head. Napi­er held his Moslem al­ly in great es­teem, and en­ter­tained a very high opin­ion of his po­lit­ical acu­men and chival­ry as a lead­er and sol­dier. The Aga Khan re­cip­ro­cat­ed the British com­man­der’s con­fi­dence and friend­ship by giv­ing re­peat­ed proofs of his de­vo­tion and at­tach­ment to the British gov­ern­ment, and when he fi­nal­ly set­tled down in In­dia, his po­si­tion as the lead­er of the large Is­mail­iah sec­tion of Ma­hommedan British sub­jects was rec­og­nized by the gov­ern­ment, and the ti­tle of His High­ness was con­ferred on him, with a large pen­sion. From that time un­til his death in 1881 the Aga Khan, while lead­ing the life of a peace­ful and peace­mak­ing cit­izen, un­der the pro­tec­tion of British rule, con­tin­ued to dis­charge his sac­er­do­tal func­tions, not on­ly among his fol­low­ers in In­dia, but to­wards the more nu­mer­ous com­mu­ni­ties which ac­knowl­edged his re­li­gious sway in dis­tant coun­tries, such as Afghanistan, Kho­rasan, Per­sia, Ara­bia, Cen­tral Asia, and even dis­tant Syr­ia and Mo­roc­co. He re­mained through­out un­flinch­ing­ly loy­al to the British Raj, and by his vast and un­ques­tioned in­flu­ence among the fron­tier tribes on the north­ern bor­ders of In­dia he ex­er­cised a con­trol over their un­ruly pas­sions in times of trou­ble, which proved of in­valu­able ser­vice in the sev­er­al ex­pe­di­tions led by British arms on the north-​west fron­tier of In­dia. He was al­so the means of check­ing the fa­nati­cism of the more tur­bu­lent Ma­hommedans in British In­dia, which in times of in­ter­nal trou­bles and mis­un­der­stand­ings finds vent in the shape of re­li­gious or po­lit­ical ri­ots.

He was suc­ceed­ed by his el­dest son, AGA KHAN II. This prince con­tin­ued the tra­di­tions and work of his fa­ther in a man­ner that won the ap­pro­ba­tion of the lo­cal gov­ern­ment, and earned for him the dis­tinc­tion of a knight­hood of the Or­der of the In­di­an Em­pire and a seat in the leg­isla­tive coun­cil of Bom­bay.

AGA KHAN III. (Sul­tan Ma­hommed Shah), on­ly son of the fore­go­ing, suc­ceed­ed him on his death in 1885, and be­came the head of the fam­ily and its devo­tees. He was born in 1877, and, un­der the care of his moth­er, a daugh­ter of the rul­ing house of Per­sia, was giv­en not on­ly that re­li­gious and ori­en­tal ed­uca­tion which his po­si­tion as the re­li­gious lead­er of the Is­mail­ians made in­dis­pens­able, but a sound Eu­ro­pean train­ing, a boon de­nied to his fa­ther and grand­fa­ther. This blend­ing of the two sys­tems of ed­uca­tion pro­duced the hap­py re­sult of fit­ting this Moslem chief in an em­inent de­gree both for the sac­er­do­tal func­tions which ap­per­tain to his spir­itu­al po­si­tion, and for those so­cial du­ties of a great and en­light­ened lead­er which he was called up­on to dis­charge by virtue of that po­si­tion. He trav­elled in dis­tant parts of the world to re­ceive the homage of his fol­low­ers, and with the ob­ject ei­ther of set­tling dif­fer­ences or of ad­vanc­ing their wel­fare by pe­cu­niary help and per­son­al ad­vice and guid­ance. The dis­tinc­tion of a knight com­man­der of the In­di­an Em­pire was con­ferred up­on him by Queen Vic­to­ria in 1897, and he re­ceived like recog­ni­tion for his pub­lic ser­vices from the Ger­man em­per­or, the sul­tan of Turkey, the shah of Per­sia and oth­er po­ten­tates.

See Naoro­ji M. Du­ma­sia, A Brief His­to­ry of the Aga Khan (1903) (M. M. BH.)

AGAL­MA­TO­LITE (from Gr. agal­ma, stat­ue, and lithos, stone), a soft species of min­er­al, al­so called pagodite, used by the Chi­nese for carv­ing, es­pe­cial­ly in­to grotesque fig­ures (whence called “fig­ure-​stone”).

AGAMEDES, in Greek leg­end, son of Ergi­nus, king of Or­chome­nus in Boeo­tia. He is al­ways as­so­ci­at­ed with his broth­er Tro­pho­nius as a won­der­ful ar­chi­tect, the con­struc­tor of un­der­ground shrines and grot­tos for the re­cep­tion of hid­den trea­sure. When build­ing a trea­sure-​house for Hyrieus, the broth­ers fixed one of the stones in the wall so that they could re­move it when­ev­er they pleased, and from time to time car­ried off some of the trea­sure. Hyrieus there­upon set a trap in which Agamedes was caught; Tro­pho­nius, to pre­vent dis­cov­ery, cut off his broth­er’s head and fled with it. He was pur­sued by Hyrieus, and swal­lowed up by the earth in the grove of Lebadeia. On this spot was the or­acle of Tro­pho­nius in an un­der­ground cave; those who wished to con­sult it first of­fered the sac­ri­fice of a ram and called up­on the name of Agamedes. A sim­ilar sto­ry is told of Rhampsini­tus by Herodotus (ii. 121). Ac­cord­ing to Pin­dar (apud Plutarch), the broth­ers built the tem­ple of Apol­lo at Del­phi; when they asked for a re­ward, the god promised them one in sev­en days; on the sev­enth day they died.

Pau­sa­nias ix. 37; Plutarch, Con­so­la­tio ad Apol­lo­ni­um, 14; Ci­cero, Tusc. Disp. i. 47.

AGAMEM­NON, one of the most dis­tin­guished of the Greek heroes, was the son of Atreus (king of Myce­nae) and Aerope, grand­son of Pelops, great-​grand­son of Tan­ta­lus and broth­er of Menelaus. An­oth­er ac­count makes him the son of Pleis­thenes (the son or fa­ther of Atreus), who is said to have been Aerope’s first hus­band. Atreus was mur­dered by Aegisthus (q.v.), who took pos­ses­sion of the throne of Myce­nae and ruled joint­ly with his fa­ther Thyestes. Dur­ing this pe­ri­od Agamem­non and Menelaus took refuge with Tyn­dareus, king of Spar­ta, whose daugh­ters Clytaemnes­tra (more cor­rect­ly Clytaemes­tra) and He­len they re­spec­tive­ly mar­ried. By Clytaemnes­tra, Agamem­non had three daugh­ters, Iphi­geneia (Iphi­anas­sa), Elec­tra (Laodice), Chrysothemis, and a son, Orestes. Menelaus suc­ceed­ed Tyn­dareus, and Agamem­non, with his broth­er’s as­sis­tance, drove out Aegisthus and Thyestes, and re­cov­ered his fa­ther’s king­dom. He ex­tend­ed his do­min­ion by con­quest and be­came the most pow­er­ful prince in Greece. When Paris (Alexan­der), son of Pri­am, had car­ried off his broth­er’s wife, he went round to the princes of the coun­try and called up­on them to unite in a war of re­venge against the Tro­jans. He him­self fur­nished 100 ships, and was cho­sen com­man­der-​in-​chief of the com­bined forces. The fleet, num­ber­ing 1200 ships, as­sem­bled at the port of Aulis in Boeo­tia. But Agamem­non had of­fend­ed the god­dess Artemis by slay­ing a hind sa­cred to her, and boast­ing him­self a bet­ter hunter. The army was vis­it­ed by a plague, and the fleet was pre­vent­ed from sail­ing by the to­tal ab­sence of wind. Calchas an­nounced that the wrath of the god­dess could on­ly be ap­peased by the sac­ri­fice of Iphi­geneia (q.v..) The fleet then set sail. Lit­tle is heard of Agamem­non un­til his quar­rel with Achilles (q.v..) Af­ter the cap­ture of Troy, Cas­san­dra, the daugh­ter of Pri­am, fell to his lot in the dis­tri­bu­tion of the prizes of war. On his re­turn, af­ter a stormy voy­age, he land­ed in Ar­go­lis. His kins­man, Aegisthus, who in the in­ter­val had se­duced his wife Clytaemnes­tra, in­vit­ed him to a ban­quet at which he was treach­er­ous­ly slain, Cas­san­dra al­so be­ing put to death by Clytaemnes­tra. Ac­cord­ing to the ac­count giv­en by Pin­dar and the trage­di­ans, Agamem­non was slain by his wife alone in a bath, a piece of cloth or a net hav­ing first been thrown over him to pre­vent re­sis­tance. Her wrath at the sac­ri­fice of Iphi­geneia, and her jeal­ousy of Cas­san­dra, are said to have been the mo­tives of her crime. The mur­der of Agamem­non was avenged by his son Orestes (q.v..) Al­though not the equal of Achilles in brav­ery, Agamem­non is a dig­ni­fied rep­re­sen­ta­tive of king­ly au­thor­ity. As com­man­der-​in-​chief, he sum­mons the princes to the coun­cil and leads the army in bat­tle. He takes the field him­self, and per­forms many hero­ic deeds un­til he is wound­ed and forced to with­draw to his tent. His chief fault is his over­ween­ing haugh­ti­ness, due to an over-​ex­alt­ed opin­ion of his po­si­tion, which leads him to in­sult Chry­ses and Achilles, there­by bring­ing great dis­as­ter up­on the Greeks. But his fam­ily had been marked out for mis­for­tune from the out­set. His king­ly of­fice had come to him from Pelops through the blood-​stained hands of Atreus and Thyestes, and had brought with it a cer­tain fa­tal­ity which. ex­plained the hos­tile des­tiny which pur­sued him. The for­tunes of Agamem­non have formed the sub­ject of nu­mer­ous tragedies, an­cient and mod­ern, the most fa­mous be­ing the Oresteia of Aeschy­lus. In the leg­ends of Pelo­pon­nesus, Agamem­non was re­gard­ed as the high­est type of a pow­er­ful monarch, and in Spar­ta he was wor­shipped un­der the ti­tle of Zeus Agamem­non. His tomb was point­ed out among the ru­ins of Myce­nae and at Amy­clae.

In works of art there is con­sid­er­able re­sem­blance be­tween the rep­re­sen­ta­tions of Zeus, king of the gods, and Agamem­non, king of men. He is gen­er­al­ly char­ac­ter­ized by the scep­tre and di­adem, the usu­al at­tributes of kings.

See ar­ti­cles in Pauly-​Wis­sowa’s Realen­cy­clopadie and Rosch­er’s Lexikon der Mytholo­gie.

AGAPE (Gr. agape, “Love”), the ear­ly Chris­tian love­feast. The word seems to be used in this sense in the epis­tle of Jude 12: “These are they who are hid­den rocks in your love­feasts when they ban­quet with you.” But this is not cer­tain, for in 2 Pet. ii. 13 the verse is cit­ed, but read­ing ap­atais (“de­ceits”) for aga­pais, and the old­est MSS. hes­itate. The his­to­ry of the agape co­in­cides, un­til the end of the 2nd cen­tu­ry, with that of the eu­charist (q.v.), and it is doubt­ful whether the fol­low­ing de­tailed ac­count of the agape giv­en in Ter­tul­lian’s Apol­ogy (c. 39) is to be re­gard­ed as ex­clu­sive of an ac­com­pa­ny­ing eu­charist: “It is the ban­quet (tri­clin­ium) alone of the Chris­tians that is crit­icised. Our sup­per (co­ena) shows its char­ac­ter by its name. It is called by a word which in Greek sig­ni­fies love (i.e. agape.) What­ev­er it costs, it is any­how a clear gain that it is in­curred on the score of piety, see­ing that we suc­cour the poor­est by such en­ter­tain­ments (re­frige­rio.) We do not lie down at ta­ble un­til prayer has been of­fered to God, as it were a first taste. We eat on­ly to ap­pease our hunger, we drink on­ly so much as it is good for tem­per­ate per­sons to do. If we sat­is­fy our ap­petites, we do so with­out for­get­ting that through­out the night we must say our prayers to God. If we con­verse, it is with the knowl­edge that the Lord is lis­ten­ing. Af­ter wash­ing our hands and light­ing the lamps, each is in­vit­ed to sing a hymn be­fore all to God, ei­ther tak­en from holy writ or of his own com­po­si­tion. So we prove him, and see how well he has drunk. Prayer ends, as it be­gan, the ban­quet; and we break up not in bands of brig­ands, nor in groups of vagabonds, nor do we burst out in­to de­bauch­ery. . . . This meet­ing of Chris­tians we ad­mit de­serves to be made il­lic­it, if it re­sem­bles il­lic­it acts; it de­serves to be con­demned, if any com­plain of it on the same score on which com­plaints are lev­elled at fac­tious meet­ings. But to do harm to whom do we ev­er thus come to­geth­er?”

The ev­idence of Ter­tul­lian is good for Africa. But in Egypt about the same time (180-210), Clement of Alexan­dria in his Ped­agogus (ii. 1) con­demns the “lit­tle sup­pers which were called, not with­out pre­sump­tion, agape.” This word, he com­plains, should de­note the heav­en­ly food, the rea­son­able feast alone, and the Lord nev­er used it of mere jun­ket­ings. Clement wished the name to be re­served for the eu­charist. be­cause the love-​feasts of the church had de­gen­er­at­ed, as Ter­tul­lian too dis­cov­ered, as soon as he turned Mon­tanist. For in his tract on fast­ing (ch. xvii.) he com­plains that the young men mis­be­haved with the sis­ters af­ter the agapee.

Among the spu­ri­ous works of Athana­sius is print­ed a tract en­ti­tled About Vir­gin­ity, ch. xi­ii. of which di­rects how the sis­ters af­ter the synax­is of the ninth hour (3 P.M.) are to dine: “When you sit down at a ta­ble and come to break bread, seal it thrice with the sign of the cross and thus give thanks: `We thank thee, our Fa­ther, for thy holy res­ur­rec­tion; for through Je­sus thy ser­vant thou hast shewn it un­to us. And as this bread on this ta­ble was scat­tered, but has been brought to­geth­er and be­come one, so may thy church be brought to­geth­er in­to thy king­dom. For thine is the pow­er and the glo­ry, for ev­er and ev­er, Amen.’ This prayer as you break the bread, and are about to eat, you must say. And when you lay it on the ta­ble and de­sire to eat it, re­peat the `Our Fa­ther’ en­tire. But af­ter din­ner (or break­fast), and when we rise from ta­ble, we use the prayer giv­en above, viz. `Blessed be God, who hath pity and nour­isheth us from our in­fan­cy, who giveth food to all flesh. Fill our hearts with joy and glad­ness, that ev­er hav­ing of all things a suf­fi­cien­cy, we may su­per­abound in all good works, in Christ Je­sus our Lord, &c.”’ The writ­er then en­joins that, “if two or three oth­er vir­gins are present, they al­so shall give thanks over the bread set out, and join in the prayers. But if a cat­echu­men be found at the ta­ble, she shall not be suf­fered to join with the full be­liev­ers in their prayers, nor shall the lat­ter sit with her to eat the morsel” (fiomon, used spe­cial­ly of the sanc­ti­fied bread). “Nor shall they sit with frivolous and jok­ing wom­en, if they can help it, for they are sanc­ti­fied to God, and their food and drink have been hal­lowed by the prayers and holy words used over them. . . . If a rich wom­an sits down with them at ta­ble, and they see a poor wom­an, they shall in­vite her al­so to eat with them, and not put her to shame be­cause of the rich one.” The last words echo 1 Cor. x., and the prayer is near­ly the same as that which the teach­ing of the Apos­tles as­signs for the eu­charis­tic rite. Here, then, we have pic­tured as late as the 4th cen­tu­ry a Lord’s sup­per, which like the one de­scribed in 1 Cor. x. is agape and eu­charist in one, and it is held in a pri­vate house and not in church, and the cel­ebrants are holy wom­en!

The his­to­ri­an Socrates (Hist. Ec­cl. v. 22) tes­ti­fies to the sur­vival in Egypt of such Lord’s sup­pers as were love-​feasts and eu­charists in one. Around Alexan­dria and in the The­baid, he says, they hold ser­vices on the sab­bath, and un­like oth­er Chris­tians par­take of the mys­ter­ies (i.e. sacra­ment). For af­ter hold­ing good cheer and fill­ing them­selves with meats of all kinds, they at even­tide make the of­fer­ing (pros­fo­ra) and par­take of it. So Basil of Cap­pado­cia (Epis­tle 93), about the year 350, records that in Egypt the laity, as a rule, cel­ebrat­ed the com­mu­nion in their own hous­es, and par­took of the sacra­ment by them­selves when­ev­er they chose. In the old Egyp­tian church or­der, known as the Canons of Hip­poly­tus, there are nu­mer­ous di­rec­tions for the ser­vice of the agape, held on Sun­days, saints’ days or at com­mem­ora­tions of the dead. The 74th canon of the coun­cil of Trul­lo (A.D. 692) for­bade the hold­ing of sym­posia known as agapes in church. In his 54th homi­ly (tom. v. p. 365) Chrysos­tom de­scribes how af­ter the eu­charis­tic synax­is was over, the faith­ful re­mained in church, while the rich brought out meats and drink from their hous­es, and in­vit­ed the poor, and fur­nished “com­mon ta­bles, com­mon ban­quets, com­mon sym­posia in the church it­self.” The coun­cil of Gan­gra (A.D. 355) anath­ema­tized the over-​as­cetic peo­ple who de­spised “the agapes based on faith.” On­ly a few years lat­er, how­ev­er, the coun­cil of Laodicea for­bade the hold­ing of agapes in church­es. The 42nd canon of the coun­cil of Carthage un­der Au­re­lius like­wise for­bade them, but these were on­ly lo­cal coun­cils. In the age of Chrysos­tom and Au­gus­tine the agape was fre­quent.

In the east Syr­ian, the Ar­me­ni­an and the Geor­gian church­es, re­spec­tive­ly Nesto­ri­an, Mono­physite and Greek Or­tho­dox in their tenets, the agape was from the first a sur­vival, un­der Chris­tian and Jew­ish forms, of the old sac­ri­fi­cial sys­tems of a pre-​Chris­tian age. Sheep, rams, bul­locks, fowls are giv­en sac­ri­fi­cial salt to lick, and then sac­ri­ficed by the priest and dea­con, who has the levit­ical por­tions of the vic­tim as his perquisite. In Ar­me­nia the Greek word agape has been used ev­er since the 4th cen­tu­ry to in­di­cate these sac­ri­fi­cial meals, which ei­ther be­gan or end­ed with a eu­charis­tic cel­ebra­tion. The ear­li­er us­age of the Ar­me­ni­ans is ex­pressed in the two fol­low­ing rules record­ed against them by a rene­gade Ar­me­ni­an prelate named Isaac, who in the 8th cen­tu­ry went over to the Byzan­tine church: “Christ did not hand down to us the teach­ing to cel­ebrate the mys­tery of the of­fer­ing of the bread in church, but in an or­di­nary house, and sit­ting at a com­mon ta­ble. So then let them not sac­ri­fice the of­fer­ing of bread in church­es. It was af­ter sup­per, when his dis­ci­ples were thor­ough­ly sat­ed, that Christ gave them of his own body to eat. There­fore let them first eat meats and be sat­ed, and then let them par­take of the mys­ter­ies.” These old canons are ad­duced by way of ridi­cul­ing the Ar­me­ni­ans, yet they re­flect old us­age. They are giv­en in the His­to­ria Monothe­li­tarum of Combe­fi­sius, col. 317. Old­er MSS. of the Greek Eu­cholo­gion con­tain nu­mer­ous prayers to be of­fered over an­imals sac­ri­ficed; and in the form of agape such sac­ri­fices were com­mon in Italy and Gaul on the na­tal­is dies of a saint, and Pauli­nus of No­la, the friend of Au­gus­tine, in his Latin po­ems, de­scribes them (c. 400) in de­tail. Gre­go­ry the Great sent to Mel­li­tus, bish­op of Lon­don, a writ­ten rite of sac­ri­fic­ing bulls for use in the En­glish church of the ear­ly 7th cen­tu­ry. In Au­gus­tine’s work against Faus­tus the Manichean (xx. 4), the lat­ter tax­es the Catholics with hav­ing turned the sac­ri­fices of the hea­then in­to agapes, their idols in­to mar­tyrs, whom they wor­ship with sim­ilar rites. “You ap­pease,” he says, “the shades of the dead with wines and ban­quets, you cel­ebrate the feast-​days of the hea­then along with them . . . in their way of liv­ing you have cer­tain­ly changed noth­ing.” This was true enough, but there is truth al­so in the re­mark of Prof. San­day (“Eu­charist” in Hast­ings’ Dic­tio­nary of the Bible) that Prov­idence even in its rev­olu­tions is con­ser­va­tive. The world could on­ly be chris­tian­ized on con­di­tion that old holy days and cus­toms were con­tin­ued. The ear­ly Chris­tian agape ad­mit­ted of adap­ta­tion to the old­er fu­ner­al and sac­ri­fi­cial feasts, and was so adapt­ed. The as­so­ci­ation in the syn­op­tics of the ear­li­est eu­charist with the paschal sac­ri­fice pro­vid­ed a mod­el, and long af­ter the eu­charist was sep­arat­ed with the agape on oth­er days of the year, we still find cel­ebrat­ed on the evening of Maun­dy Thurs­day the sac­ri­fice of the paschal lamb, im­me­di­ate­ly fol­lowed by an eu­charist. The 41st canon of the coun­cil of Carthage en­act­ed that the sacra­ments of the al­tar should be re­ceived fast­ing, ex­cept on the an­niver­sary of the Lord’s sup­per. It is clear that at an ear­li­er date the agape pre­ced­ed the eu­charist.

Pa­gan Ana­logues.–In an­cient states com­mon meals called sus­si­tia (sus­si­tia) were in­sti­tut­ed, par­tic­ular­ly in the Doric states, e.g. in La­caede­mon and in Crete. Pla­to ad­vo­cat­ed them, and per­haps the lat­er Jews im­itat­ed the Spar­tan com­mu­ni­ty. Trade and oth­er gilds in an­tiq­ui­ty held sub­scrip­tion sup­pers or ira­noi, sim­ilar to those of the ear­ly Corinthi­an church, usu­al­ly to sup­port the needs of the poor­er mem­bers. These het­airi­ae or clubs were for­bid­den (ex­cept in cities for­mal­ly al­lied to Rome) by Tra­jan and oth­er em­per­ors, as be­ing like­ly to be cen­tres of dis­af­fec­tion; and on this ground Pliny for­bade the agape of the Bithy­ni­an church­es, Chris­tian­ity not be­ing a law­ful re­li­gion li­censed for such gath­er­ings. The cus­tom which most re­sem­bles the eu­charist and agape was that known as charis­tia de­scribed by Va­lerius Max­imus ii. 1. 8. It was a solemn feast at­tend­ed on­ly by mem­bers of one clan, at which those who had quar­relled were at the sacra­ment of the ta­ble (apud sacra men­sae) rec­on­ciled. It was held on the 20th of Febru­ary. Ovid in his Fasti, ii. 617, al­ludes to it– Prox­ima cog­nati dixere charis­tia cari, Et ven­it ad so­cios tur­ba propin­qua de­os.

AU­THOR­ITIES.–“The Canons of Hip­poly­tus,” in Duch­esne’s Orig­ines du culte chre­tien (Paris, 1898).; A. Allen, Chris­tian In­sti­tu­tions (Lon­don, 1898); P. Bat­iffol, Etudes d’his­toire (Paris, 1902 and 1905); F. X. Funk, “L’Agape,” in the Re­vue de l’his­toire ec­cle­si­as­tique (Lou­vain, Jan. 1903); Ad. Har­nack, “Brod und Wass­er” (Texte und Un­ter­such. vii. 2, Leipzig, 1891); J. F. Keat­ing, The Agape and the Eu­charist (Lon­don, 1901): F. X. Kraus, arts. “Agapes” and “Mahle” in the Realen­cy­ck­lop. d. christl. Al­ter­tumer; P. Ladeuze, “L’Eu­charistie et les repas com­muns” in the Re­vue de l’ori­ent chre­tien, No. 3, 1902; Sir W. M. Ram­say, The Church in the Ro­man Em­pire (Lon­don, 1894); A. Spit­ta, Zur Geschichte und Lit­ter­atur (Got­tin­gen, 1893); E. von der Goltz, Das Ge­bet in al­testen Chris­tian­heit (Leipzig, 1901); F. E. War­ren; The Litur­gy and Rit­ual of the An­tenicene Church (Lon­don, 1897); T. Zahn, art. “Agapen” in Hauck’s Realen­cyk­lop.; F.. C. Cony­beare, Rit­uale Ar­meno­rum (Ox­ford, 1905; it con­tains the old­est Latin and Greek forms), The Key of Truth (Ox­ford, 1898), and art. on “The Sur­vival of An­imal Sac­ri­fices” in the Amer­ican Jour­nal of The­ol­ogy (Chica­go, Jan. 1903); F. X. Funk, Di­das­calia et Con­sti­tu­tiones Apos­tolo­rum (Pader­born, 1906); V. Er­moni, L’Agape (Paris, 1904); G. Horner, The Statutes of the Apos­tles, trans­lat­ed from Ethiopic and Ara­bic MSS. (Lon­don, 1904); The­fr. Dresch­er, Diss. de vet. Chris­tiano­rum Agapis (Giesse, 1824); L. A. Mu­ra­tori, Anec­do­ta Grae­ca, “De agapis sub­latis” (Patavii, 1709); I. A. Fabri­cius, Bib­li­ogr. Ant. p. 587; Muenter, Pri­mord. Ec­cl. Afr. p. 111; Walafrid Stra­bo, De Re­bus Ec­cles. capi­ta 18,19; Gre­go­ry of Tours, De mira­culis S. Ju­liani, xxxi.; Puali­ni Nolani Car­men xii. in S. Fe­licem. (F. C. C.)

AGAPE­MONITES, or COM­MU­NI­TY OF THE SON OF MAN. This sect, based up­on the the­ories of var­ious Ger­man re­li­gious mys­tics, and hav­ing for its pri­ma­ry ob­ject the spir­itu­al­iza­tion of the mat­ri­mo­ni­al state, was found­ed in 1846 by the Rev. Hen­ry James Prince, a cler­gy­man of the Church of Eng­land (1811-1899). He stud­ied medicine, ob­tained his qual­ifi­ca­tions in 1832 and was ap­point­ed med­ical of­fi­cer to the Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal in Bath, his na­tive city. Com­pelled by ill-​health to aban­don his pro­fes­sion, he en­tered him­self in 1837 as a stu­dent at St. David’s The­olog­ical Col­lege, Lam­peter, where he gath­ered about him a band of earnest re­li­gious en­thu­si­asts, known as the Lam­peter Brethren, and was even­tu­al­ly or­dained to the cu­ra­cy of Char­linch in Som­er­set, where he had sole charge in the ill­ness and ab­sence of the rec­tor, the Rev. Samuel Starkey. By that time he had con­tract­ed his first “spir­itu­al mar­riage,” and had per­suad­ed him­self that he had been ab­sorbed in­to the per­son­al­ity of God and had be­come a vis­ible em­bod­iment of the Holy Spir­it. Dur­ing his ill­ness Mr. Starkey read one of his cu­rate’s ser­mons and was not on­ly “cured” forth­with, but em­braced his strange doc­trines, and to­geth­er they pro­cured many con­ver­sions in the coun­try­side and the neigh­bour­ing towns. In the end the rec­tor was de­prived of his liv­ing and Prince’s li­cence with­drawn, and to­geth­er with a few dis­ci­ples they start­ed the Char­linch Free Church, which had a very brief ex­is­tence. Prince short­ly af­ter­wards be­came cu­rate of Stoke in Suf­folk, where, how­ev­er, the char­ac­ter of his re­vival­ist zeal caused his de­par­ture at the end of twelve months. It was now de­cid­ed that Prince, Starkey (whose sis­ter Prince had mar­ried as his sec­ond wife) and the Rev. Lewis Prince should leave the Church of Eng­land and preach their own gospel; Prince opened Adul­lam Chapel, Brighton, and Starkey es­tab­lished him­self at Wey­mouth. The chief suc­cess lay in the lat­ter town, and thith­er Prince soon mi­grat­ed. A num­ber of fol­low­ers, es­ti­mat­ed by Prince at 500, but by his crit­ics at one-​fifth of the num­ber, were got to­geth­er, and it was giv­en out by “Beloved” or “The Lamb”–the names by which the Agape­monites des­ig­nat­ed their lead­er–that his dis­ci­ples must di­vest them­selves of their pos­ses­sions and throw them in­to the com­mon stock. This was done, even by the poor or ill-​fur­nished, all of whom looked for­ward to the speedy end of the present dis­pen­sa­tion, and were con­tent, for the short re­main­der of this world, to live in com­mon, and, while not re­pu­di­at­ing earth­ly ties, to treat them as pure­ly spir­itu­al. With the mon­ey thus ob­tained the house at Spax­ton, which was to be­come the “Abode of Love,” was en­larged and fur­nished lux­uri­ous­ly, and three sis­ters, who con­tribut­ed L. 6000 each, were im­me­di­ate­ly mar­ried to three of Prince’s near­est dis­ci­ples. De­spite the pure­ly spir­itu­al ideas which un­der­lay the Agape­monite view of mar­riage, a son was born to one of these cou­ples, and when the fa­ther en­deav­oured to car­ry it away an ac­tion was brought which re­sult­ed in the af­fir­ma­tion of the moth­er’s right to its cus­tody. The cir­cum­stance in which a fourth sis­ter who joined the com­mu­ni­ty was ab­duct­ed by her broth­ers led to an in­quiry in lu­na­cy and to her fi­nal set­tle­ment at Spax­ton. A few years af­ter the es­tab­lish­ment of the “Abode of Love,” a pe­cu­liar­ly gross scan­dal, in which Prince and one of his fe­male fol­low­ers were in­volved, led to the se­ces­sion of some of his most faith­ful friends, who were un­able any longer to en­dure what they re­gard­ed as the amaz­ing mix­ture of blas­phe­my and im­moral­ity of­fered for their ac­cep­tance. The most promi­nent of those who re­mained re­ceived such ti­tles as the “Anoint­ed Ones,” the “An­gel of the Last Trum­pet,” the “Sev­en Wit­ness­es” and so forth. In 1862 “Broth­er Prince” sent “to the kings and peo­ple of the earth” let­ters “mak­ing known to all men that flesh is saved from death.” At that pe­ri­od the Agape­monites count­ed their ad­her­ents at 600, and it was no doubt a grievous shock to them when their death­less founder died on the 8th of March 1899, four years af­ter he had opened a branch church at Clap­ton, Lon­don, which is said to have cost L. 20.000. This church, dec­orat­ed with elab­orate sym­bol­ism,’was styled the “Ark of the Covenant,” and in it the elect were to await the com­ing of the Lord.

On the death of “Broth­er” Prince, the Rev. T. H. Smyth-​Pig­ott, pas­tor of the “Ark,” be­came the ac­knowl­edged head of the sect. He was born in 1852, of an old Som­er­set­shire coun­ty fam­ily, and, af­ter a var­ied ca­reer as uni­ver­si­ty man, sailor be­fore the mast, sol­dier, cof­fee-​planter, cu­rate in the Church of Eng­land and evan­ge­list in the Sal­va­tion Army, was con­vert­ed about 1897 to the views of Prince. For five years af­ter this he was not heard of out­side his own sect. On the 7th of Septem­ber 1902, how­ev­er, the con­gre­ga­tion, as­sem­bled at the Ark of the Covenant for ser­vice, found the com­mu­nion ta­ble re­placed by a chair. In this Pig­ott present­ly seat­ed him­self and pro­claimed him­self as the Mes­si­ah with the words, “God is no longer there,” point­ing up­wards, “but here,” point­ing to him­self. This as­ton­ish­ing an­nounce­ment was fol­lowed by an ex­cel­lent ser­mon on Chris­tian love. Pig­ott’s claim was at once ad­mit­ted by the mem­bers of his sect, in­clud­ing even his own wife, as the ful­fil­ment of the promise of Christ to ap­pear in due time in the “Ark.” By the out­side world the af­fair was greet­ed with min­gled ridicule and in­dig­na­tion, and the new Mes­si­ah had to be pro­tect­ed by the po­lice from the vi­olence of an an­gry mob. Af­ter pro­vid­ing “copy” for the news­pa­pers for a few days, how­ev­er, the whole thing was for­got­ten. Pig­ott re­tired to the head­quar­ters of the sect, the “Abode of Love” in Som­er­set, and all ef­forts to in­ter­view him or to ob­tain de­tails of the life of the com­mu­ni­ty were abortive. At last, in Au­gust 1905, the long and mys­te­ri­ous si­lence was bro­ken by the an­nounce­ment that a son had been born to Pig­ott by his “spir­itu­al wife,” Miss Ruth Preece, an in­mate of the Agape­mone. This event by no means dis­con­cert­ed the be­liev­ers, who saw in it on­ly an­oth­er man­ifes­ta­tion of Pig­ott’s di­vin­ity, and pro­claimed it as “an earnest of the to­tal re­demp­tion of man.” The child was reg­is­tered as “Glo­ry,” and, at the chris­ten­ing ser­vice in the chapel of the Abode, hymns were sung in its hon­our as it lay in a jew­elled cra­dle in the chan­cel. An­oth­er child by Miss Preece, chris­tened “Pow­er,” was born on the 20th of Au­gust 1908. The pub­lic­ity giv­en to this event re­newed the scan­dal, and in Novem­ber an at­tempt to “tar and feath­er” Mr Pig­ott re­sult­ed in two men be­ing sent to prison. Lat­er in the month pro­ceed­ings were in­sti­tut­ed against him by the bish­op of Bath and Wells un­der the Cler­gy Dis­ci­pline Act.

One out­come of the dis­clo­sures con­nect­ed with the Agape­mone de­serves pass­ing men­tion, as throw­ing some light on the ori­gin of the wealth of the com­mu­ni­ty. Mr Charles Stokes Read, a res­ident at the Agape­mone and di­rec­tor of the V. V. Bread Com­pa­ny, was re­quest­ed by his fel­low-​di­rec­tors to re­sign, on the ground that his con­nex­ion with the sect was dam­ag­ing the busi­ness of the com­pa­ny. He de­nied this to be the case and re­fused to re­sign, plead­ing re­li­gious lib­er­ty and the large in­ter­ests of Agape­monites in the con­cern. On the 13th of Septem­ber 1905, a meet­ing of the share­hold­ers of the com­pa­ny was held, and Read “asked them to be­lieve that it was not in the in­ter­ests of the com­pa­ny, but be­cause he knew that the Lord Je­sus Christ had come again and was now dwelling at the Agape­mone, that he was thus cast out by his col­leagues.” The mo­tion call­ing on him to re­sign was car­ried on a poll be­ing tak­en by 46,770 votes to 2953. (See The Times, 14th of Septem­ber 1905.)

AGAPETAE, a class of “vir­gins” who, in the church of the ear­ly mid­dle ages, lived with pro­fess­ed­ly celi­bate monks to whom they were said to be unit­ed by spir­itu­al love. The prac­tice was sup­pressed by the Lat­er­an Coun­cil of 1139.

AGAPE­TUS, the name of two popes:–

AGAPE­TUS I., pope from 535 to 536. He was an en­light­ened pon­tiff and col­lab­orat­ed with Cas­siodor­us in found­ing at Rome a li­brary of ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal au­thors. King Theo­da­had sent him on an em­bassy to Con­stantino­ple, where he died, af­ter hav­ing de­posed An­thimus, the mono­physite bish­op of that town, and or­dained Menas his suc­ces­sor.

AGAPE­TUS II., pope from 946 to 955, at the time when Al­ber­ic, son of Marozia, was gov­ern­ing the in­de­pen­dent re­pub­lic of Rome un­der the ti­tle of “prince and sen­ator of the Ro­mans.” Agape­tus, a man of some force of char­ac­ter, did his best to put a stop to the degra­da­tion in­to which the pa­pa­cy had fall­en, the so-​called “Pornoc­ra­cy,” which last­ed from the ac­ces­sion of Sergius III. in 904 to the de­po­si­tion of John XII. in 963. His ap­peal to Ot­to the Great to in­ter­vene in Rome re­mained with­out im­me­di­ate ef­fect, since Al­ber­ic’s po­si­tion was too strong to be at­tacked, but it bore fruit af­ter his death. Agape­tus died on the 8th of Novem­ber 955.

AGAPE­TUS, a dea­con of the church of St Sophia at Con­stantino­ple. He pre­sent­ed to the em­per­or Jus­tini­an, on his ac­ces­sion in 527, a work en­ti­tled Sche­da re­gia sive de of­fi­cio reg­is, which con­tained ad­vice on the du­ties of a Chris­tian prince. The work was of­ten reprint­ed and is in­clud­ed in Dom Anselme Ban­duri’s Im­peri­um Ori­en­tale (Paris, 1711). There is an En­glish trans­la­tion by Thomas Paynell (1550) and a French trans­la­tion, ex­ecut­ed in 1612 from a Latin ver­sion by Louis XI­II., with the as­sis­tance of his tu­tor, David Ri­vault.

AGARDE, ARTHUR (1540-1615), En­glish an­ti­quary, was born at Fos­ton, Der­byshire, in 1540. He was trained as a lawyer, but en­tered the ex­che­quer as a clerk. On the au­thor­ity of An­tho­ny a Wood it has been stat­ed that he was ap­point­ed by Sir Nicholas Throck­mor­ton to be deputy-​cham­ber­lain in 1570, and that he held this of­fice for forty-​five years. His patent of ap­point­ment, how­ev­er, pre­served in the Rolls Of­fice, proves that he suc­ceed­ed one Thomas Reve in the post on the 11th of Ju­ly 1603. With his friends, Sir Robert Cot­ton and Cam­den, he was one of the orig­inal mem­bers of the So­ci­ety of An­ti­quar­ies. He spent much labour in cat­alogu­ing the records and state pa­pers, and made a spe­cial study of the Domes­day Book, prepar­ing an ex­pla­na­tion of its more ob­scure terms. Thomas Hearne, in his Col­lec­tion of Cu­ri­ous Dis­cours­es writ­ten by Em­inent An­ti­quar­ies (Ox­ford, 1720), in­cludes six by Agarde on such sub­jects as the ori­gin of par­lia­ment, the an­tiq­ui­ty of shires, the au­thor­ity and priv­ileges of her­alds, &c. Agarde died on the 22nd of Au­gust 1615 and was buried in the clois­ter of West­min­ster Abbey, on his tomb be­ing in­scribed “Recor­do­rum re­gio­rum hic prope de­pos­ito­rum dili­gens scru­ta­tor.” He be­queathed to the ex­che­quer all his pa­pers re­lat­ing to that court, and to his friend Sir Robert Cot­ton his oth­er manuscripts, amount­ing to twen­ty vol­umes, most of which are now in the British Mu­se­um.

AGAS, RADULPH, or RALPH (c. 1540-1621), En­glish land sur­vey­or, was born at Stoke-​by-​Nay­land, Suf­folk, about 1540, and en­tered up­on the prac­tice of his pro­fes­sion in 1566. Let­ters which he wrote to Lord Burgh­ley, de­scrib­ing the meth­ods of sur­vey­ing, are ex­tant, and a kind of ad­ver­tis­ing prospec­tus of his abil­ities, in which he de­scribes him­self as clever at arith­metic and “skilled in writ­ing smaule, af­ter the skan­telinge & pro­por­tion of copiyn­ge the Oulde & New Tes­ta­mentes sev­en tymes in one skinne of partch­mente with­out anie wo­orde abre­vi­ate or con­tract­ed, which maie al­so serve for drawinge dis­crip­tions of con­tries in­to vol­umes portable in ver­ie lit­tle cas­es.” He is best known for his maps of Ox­ford (1578), Cam­bridge (1592) and Lon­don. Copies of the first two are pre­served in the Bodleian Li­brary. Of the map of Lon­don and West­min­ster, which was prob­ably pre­pared about 1591, two copies have been pre­served, one by the Cor­po­ra­tion of Lon­don and the oth­er in the Pepysian col­lec­tion at Mag­da­lene Col­lege, Cam­bridge. The map is over six feet long, print­ed from wood­en blocks, and gives a valu­able pic­ture of the Lon­don of Eliz­abeth’s time. Agas died on the 26th of Novem­ber 1621.

AGASIAS. There were two Greek sculp­tors of this name. Agasias, son of Dositheus, has signed the re­mark­able stat­ue called the Borgh­ese War­rior, in the Lou­vre. Agasias, son of Menophilus, is the au­thor of an­oth­er strik­ing fig­ure of a war­rior in the mu­se­um of Athens. Both be­longed to the school of Eph­esus and flour­ished about 100 B.C.

See E. A. Gard­ner, Hand­book Greek Sculp­ture, ii. p. 475.

AGAS­SIZ, ALEXAN­DER EMANUEL (1835-1910), Amer­ican man of sci­ence, son of J. L. R. Agas­siz, was born in Neucha­tel, Switzer­land, on the 17th of De­cem­ber 1835. He came to the Unit­ed States with his fa­ther in 1846; grad­uat­ed at Har­vard in 1855, sub­se­quent­ly study­ing en­gi­neer­ing and chem­istry, and tak­ing the de­gree of bach­elor of sci­ence at the Lawrence sci­en­tif­ic school of the same in­sti­tu­tion in 1857; and in 1859 be­came an as­sis­tant in the Unit­ed States Coast Sur­vey. Thence­for­ward he be­came a spe­cial­ist in ma­rine ichthy­ol­ogy, but de­vot­ed much time to the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, su­per­in­ten­dence and ex­ploita­tion of mines, be­ing su­per­in­ten­dent of the Calumet and Hecla cop­per mines, Lake Su­pe­ri­or, from 1866 to 1869, and af­ter­wards, as a stock­hold­er, ac­quir­ing a for­tune, out of which he gave to Har­vard, for the mu­se­um of com­par­ative zo­ol­ogy and oth­er pur­pos­es, some $500,000. In 1875 he sur­veyed Lake Tit­ica­ca, Pe­ru, ex­am­ined the cop­per mines of Pe­ru and Chile, and made a col­lec­tion of Pe­ru­vian an­tiq­ui­ties for that mu­se­um, of which he was cu­ra­tor from 1874 to 1885. He as­sist­ed Sir Wyville Thom­son in the ex­am­ina­tion and clas­si­fi­ca­tion of the col­lec­tions of the “Chal­lenger” ex­plor­ing ex­pe­di­tion, and wrote the Re­view of the Echi­ni (2 vols., 1872-1874) in the re­ports. Be­tween 1877 and 1880 he took part in the three dredg­ing ex­pe­di­tions of the steam­er “Blake,” of the Unit­ed States Coast Sur­vey, and pre­sent­ed a full ac­count of them in two vol­umes (1888). Of his oth­er writ­ings on ma­rine zo­ol­ogy, most are con­tained in the bul­letins and mem­oirs of the mu­se­um of com­par­ative zo­ol­ogy; but he pub­lished in 1865 (with Eliz­abeth Cary Agas­siz, his step-​moth­er) Sea­side Stud­ies in Nat­ural His­to­ry, a work at once ex­act and stim­ulat­ing, and in 1871 Ma­rine An­imals of Mas­sachusetts Bay.

AGAS­SIZ, JEAN LOUIS RODOLPHE (1807-1873), Swiss nat­ural­ist and ge­ol­ogist, was the son of the Protes­tant pas­tor of the parish of Moti­er, on the north-​east­ern shore of the Lake of Morat (Murten See), and not far from the east­ern ex­trem­ity of the Lake of Neucha­tel. Agas­siz was born at this re­tired place on the 28th of May 1807. Ed­ucat­ed first at home, then spend­ing four years at the gym­na­si­um of Bi­enne, he com­plet­ed his el­emen­tary stud­ies at the acade­my of Lau­sanne. Hav­ing adopt­ed medicine as his pro­fes­sion, he stud­ied suc­ces­sive­ly at the uni­ver­si­ties of Zurich, Hei­del­berg and Mu­nich; and he availed him­self of the ad­van­tages af­ford­ed by these uni­ver­si­ties for ex­tend­ing his knowl­edge of nat­ural his­to­ry, es­pe­cial­ly of botany. Af­ter com­plet­ing his aca­dem­ical course, he took in 1829 his de­gree of doc­tor of phi­los­ophy at Er­lan­gen, and in 1830 that of doc­tor of medicine at Mu­nich.

Up to this time he had paid no spe­cial at­ten­tion to the study of ichthy­ol­ogy, which soon af­ter­wards be­came the great oc­cu­pa­tion of his life. Agas­siz al­ways de­clared that he was led in­to ichthy­olog­ical pur­suits through the fol­low­ing cir­cum­stances:–

In 1819-1820, J. B. Spix and C. F. P. von Mar­tius were en­gaged in their cel­ebrat­ed Brazil­ian tour, and on their re­turn to Eu­rope, amongst oth­er col­lec­tions of nat­ural ob­jects they brought home an im­por­tant set of the fresh­wa­ter fish­es of Brazil, and es­pe­cial­ly of the Ama­zon riv­er. Spix, who died in 1826, did not live long enough to work out the his­to­ry of these fish­es; and Agas­siz though lit­tle more than a youth just lib­er­at­ed from his aca­dem­ic stud­ies, was se­lect­ed by Prof. Mar­tius for this pur­pose. He at once threw him­self in­to the work with that earnest­ness of spir­it which char­ac­ter­ized him to the end of his busy life, and the task of de­scrib­ing and fig­ur­ing the Brazil­ian fish­es was com­plet­ed and pub­lished in 1829. This was fol­lowed by an elab­orate re­search in­to the his­to­ry of the fish­es found in the Lake of Neucha­tel. En­larg­ing his plans, he is­sued in 1830 a prospec­tus of a His­to­ry of the Fresh­wa­ter Fish­es of Cen­tral Eu­rope. It was on­ly in 1839, how­ev­er, that the first part of this pub­li­ca­tion ap­peared, and it was com­plet­ed in 1842. In 1832 he was ap­point­ed pro­fes­sor of nat­ural his­to­ry in the uni­ver­si­ty of Neucha­tel. Hav­ing be­come a pro­fessed ichthy­ol­ogist, it was im­pos­si­ble that the fos­sil fish­es should fail to at­tract his at­ten­tion. The rich stores fur­nished by the slates of Glarus and the lime­stones of Monte Bol­ca were al­ready well known; but very lit­tle had been ac­com­plished in the way of sci­en­tif­ic study of them. Agas­siz, as ear­ly as 1829, with his wont­ed en­thu­si­asm, planned the pub­li­ca­tion of the work which, more than any oth­er, laid the foun­da­tion of his world-​wide fame. Five vol­umes of his Recherch­es sur les pois­sons fos­siles ap­peared at in­ter­vals from 1833 to 1843 [1844]. They were mag­nif­icent­ly il­lus­trat­ed, chiefly through the labours of Joseph Dinkel, an artist of re­mark­able pow­er in de­lin­eat­ing nat­ural ob­jects. In gath­er­ing ma­te­ri­als for this great work Agas­siz vis­it­ed the prin­ci­pal mu­se­ums in Eu­rope, and meet­ing Cu­vi­er in Paris, he re­ceived much en­cour­age­ment and as­sis­tance from him.

Agas­siz found that his palaeon­to­log­ical labours ren­dered nec­es­sary a new ba­sis of ichthy­olog­ical clas­si­fi­ca­tion. The fos­sils rarely ex­hib­it­ed any traces of the soft tis­sues of fish­es. They con­sist­ed chiefly of the teeth, scales and fins, even the bones be­ing per­fect­ly pre­served in com­par­ative­ly few in­stances. He there­fore adopt­ed his well-​known clas­si­fi­ca­tion, which di­vid­ed fish­es in­to four groups–viz. Ganoids, Pla­coids, Cy­cloids and Ctenoids, based on the na­ture of the scales and oth­er der­mal ap­pendages. While Agas­siz did much to place the sub­ject on a sci­en­tif­ic ba­sis, his clas­si­fi­ca­tion has not been found to meet the re­quire­ments of mod­ern re­search. As re­marked by Dr A. Smith Wood­ward, he sought to in­ter­pret the past struc­tures by too rig­or­ous a com­par­ison with those of liv­ing forms. (See Cat­alogue of Fos­sil Fish­es in the British Nat­ural His­to­ry Mu­se­um.)

As the im­por­tant de­scrip­tive work of Agas­siz pro­ceed­ed, it be­came ob­vi­ous that it would over-​tax his re­sources, un­less as­sis­tance could be af­ford­ed. The British As­so­ci­ation came to his aid, and the earl of Ellesmere–then Lord Fran­cis Egerton–gave him yet more ef­fi­cient help. The orig­inal draw­ings made for the work, chiefly by Dinkel, amount­ed to 1290 in num­ber. These were pur­chased by the Earl, and pre­sent­ed by him to the Ge­olog­ical So­ci­ety of Lon­don. In 1836 the Wol­las­ton medal was award­ed by the coun­cil of that so­ci­ety to Agas­siz for his work on fos­sil ichthy­ol­ogy; and in 1838 he was elect­ed a for­eign mem­ber of the Roy­al So­ci­ety. Mean­while the in­ver­te­brate an­imals en­gaged his at­ten­tion. In 1837 he is­sued the “Pro­drome” of a mono­graph on the re­cent and fos­sil Echin­oder­ma­ta, the first part of which ap­peared in 1838; in 1839-1840 he pub­lished two quar­to vol­umes on the fos­sil Echin­oderms of Switzer­land; and in 1840-1845 he is­sued his Etudes cri­tiques sur les mol­lusques fos­siles.

Sub­se­quent­ly to his first vis­it to Eng­land in 1834, the labours of Hugh Miller and oth­er ge­ol­ogists brought to light the re­mark­able fish­es of the Old Red Sand­stone of the north-​east of Scot­land. The strange forms of the Pterichthys, the Coc­cos­teus and oth­er gen­era were then made known to ge­ol­ogists for the first time. They nat­ural­ly were of in­tense in­ter­est to Agas­siz, and formed the sub­ject of a spe­cial mono­graph by him pub­lished in 1844-1845: Mono­gra­phie des pois­sons fos­siles du Vieux Gres Rouge, ou Sys­teme De­vonien (Old Red Sand­stone) des Iles Bri­tan­niques et de Russie.

The year 1836 wit­nessed the in­au­gu­ra­tion of a new in­ves­ti­ga­tion, which proved to be of the ut­most im­por­tance to ge­olog­ical sci­ence. Pre­vi­ous­ly to this date de Saus­sure, Venetz, Char­pen­tier and oth­ers had made the glaciers of the Alps the sub­jects of spe­cial study, and Char­pen­tier had even ar­rived at the con­clu­sion that the er­rat­ic blocks of alpine rocks scat­tered over the slopes and sum­mits of the Ju­ra moun­tains had been con­veyed thith­er by glaciers. The ques­tion hav­ing at­tract­ed the at­ten­tion of Agas­siz, he not on­ly made suc­ces­sive jour­neys to the alpine re­gions in com­pa­ny with Char­pen­tier, but he had a hut con­struct­ed up­on one of the Aar glaciers, which for a time he made his home, in or­der to in­ves­ti­gate thor­ough­ly the struc­ture and move­ments of the ice. These labours re­sult­ed in the pub­li­ca­tion of his grand work in two vol­umes en­ti­tled Etudes sur les glaciers, 1840. There­in he dis­cussed the move­ments of the glaciers, their moraines, their in­flu­ence in groov­ing and round­ing the rocks over which they trav­elled, and in pro­duc­ing the stri­ations and roches mou­ton­nees with which we are now so fa­mil­iar. He not on­ly ac­cept­ed Char­pen­tier’s idea that some of the alpine glaciers had ex­tend­ed across the wide plains and val­leys drained by the Aar and the Rhone, and thus land­ed parts of their re­mains up­on the up­lands of the Ju­ra, but he went still far­ther. He con­clud­ed that, at a pe­ri­od ge­olog­ical­ly re­cent, Switzer­land had been an­oth­er Green­land; that in­stead of a few glaciers stretch­ing across the ar­eas re­ferred to, one vast sheet of ice, orig­inat­ing in the high­er Alps, had ex­tend­ed over the en­tire val­ley of north-​west­ern Switzer­land un­til it reached the south­ern slopes of the Ju­ra, which, though they checked and de­flect­ed its fur­ther ex­ten­sion, did not pre­vent the ice from reach­ing in many places the sum­mit of the range. The pub­li­ca­tion of this work gave a fresh im­pe­tus to the study of glacial phe­nom­ena in all parts of the world.

Thus fa­mil­iar­ized with the phe­nom­ena at­ten­dant on the move­ments of re­cent glaciers, Agas­siz was pre­pared for a dis­cov­ery which he made in 1840, in con­junc­tion with William Buck­land. These two sa­vants vis­it­ed the moun­tains of Scot­land to­geth­er, and found in dif­fer­ent lo­cal­ities clear ev­idence of an­cient glacial ac­tion. The dis­cov­ery was an­nounced to the Ge­olog­ical So­ci­ety of Lon­don in suc­ces­sive com­mu­ni­ca­tions from the two dis­tin­guished ob­servers. The moun­tain­ous dis­tricts of Eng­land and Wales and Ire­land were al­so con­sid­ered to con­sti­tute cen­tres for the dis­per­sion of glacial de­bris; and Agas­siz re­marked “that great sheets of ice, re­sem­bling those now ex­ist­ing in Green­land, once cov­ered all the coun­tries in which un­strat­ified grav­el (boul­der drift) is found; that this grav­el was in gen­er­al pro­duced by the trit­ura­tion of the sheets of ice up­on the sub­ja­cent sur­face, &c.”

In 1842-1846 he is­sued his Nomen­cla­tor Zo­olog­icus, a clas­si­fied list, with ref­er­ences, of all names em­ployed in zo­ol­ogy for gen­era and groups–a work of great labour and re­search. With the aid of a grant of mon­ey from the king of Prus­sia, Agas­siz, in the au­tumn of 1846, crossed the At­lantic, with the twofold de­sign of in­ves­ti­gat­ing the nat­ural his­to­ry and ge­ol­ogy of the Unit­ed States and de­liv­er­ing a course of lec­tures on zo­ol­ogy, by in­vi­ta­tion from J. A. Low­ell, at the Low­ell In­sti­tute at Boston; the tempt­ing ad­van­tages, pe­cu­niary and sci­en­tif­ic, pre­sent­ed to him in the New World in­duced him to set­tle in the Unit­ed States, where he re­mained to the end of his life. He was ap­point­ed pro­fes­sor of zo­ol­ogy and ge­ol­ogy in Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty, Cam­bridge, U.S., in 1847. In 1852 he ac­cept­ed a med­ical pro­fes­sor­ship of com­par­ative anato­my at Charlestown, but this he re­signed in two years.

The trans­fer to a new field and the as­so­ci­ation with fresh ob­jects of in­ter­est gave his en­er­gies an in­creased stim­ulus. Vol­ume af­ter vol­ume now pro­ceed­ed from his pen: some of his writ­ings were pop­ular, but most of them dealt with the high­er de­part­ments of sci­en­tif­ic re­search. His work on Lake Su­pe­ri­or, and his four vol­umes of Con­tri­bu­tions to the Nat­ural His­to­ry of the Unit­ed States, 1857-1862, were of this lat­ter char­ac­ter. We must not over­look the valu­able ser­vice he ren­dered to sci­ence by the for­ma­tion, for his own use, of a cat­alogue of sci­en­tif­ic mem­oirs–an ex­traor­di­nary work for a man whose hands were al­ready so full. This cat­alogue, edit­ed and ma­te­ri­al­ly en­larged by the late Hugh E. Strick­land, was pub­lished by the Ray So­ci­ety un­der the ti­tle of Bib­li­ographia Zo­olo­giae et Ge­olo­giae, in 4 vols., 1848-1854. Nor must we for­get that he was build­ing up an­oth­er mag­nif­icent mon­ument of his in­dus­try in the Mu­se­um of Nat­ural His­to­ry, which rose un­der his fos­ter­ing care, at Cam­bridge. But at length the great strain on his phys­ical pow­ers be­gan to tell. His ear­ly labours among the fish­es of Brazil had of­ten caused him to cast a long­ing glance to­wards that coun­try, and he now re­solved to com­bine the pur­suit of health with the grat­ifi­ca­tion of his long cher­ished de­sires. In April 1865 he start­ed for Brazil, with his wife and class of qual­ified as­sis­tants. An in­ter­est­ing ac­count of this ex­pe­di­tion, en­ti­tled A Jour­ney in Brazil (1868), was pub­lished by Mrs Agas­siz and him­self af­ter they re­turned home in Au­gust 1866.

In 1871 he made a sec­ond ex­cur­sion, vis­it­ing the south­ern shores of the North Amer­ican con­ti­nent, both on its At­lantic and its Pa­cif­ic sea-​boards. He had for many years yearned af­ter the es­tab­lish­ment of a per­ma­nent school where zo­olog­ical sci­ence could be pur­sued amidst the haunts of the liv­ing sub­jects of study. The last, and pos­si­bly the most in­flu­en­tial, of the labours of his life was the es­tab­lish­ment of such an in­sti­tu­tion, which he was en­abled to ef­fect through the lib­er­al­ity of Mr John An­der­son, a cit­izen of New York. That gen­tle­man, in 1873, not on­ly hand­ed over to Agas­siz the is­land of Penikese, in Buz­zard’s Bay, on the east coast, but al­so pre­sent­ed him with $50,000 where­with per­ma­nent­ly to en­dow it as a prac­ti­cal school of nat­ural sci­ence, es­pe­cial­ly de­vot­ed to the study of ma­rine zo­ol­ogy. Un­for­tu­nate­ly he did not long sur­vive the es­tab­lish­ment of this in­sti­tu­tion. The dis­ease with which he had strug­gled for some years proved fa­tal on the 14th of De­cem­ber 1873. He was buried at Mount Auburn. His mon­ument is a boul­der se­lect­ed from the moraine of the glacier of the Aar near the site of the old Ho­tel des Neuchatelois, not far from the spot where his hut once stood; and the pine-​trees which shel­ter his grave were sent from his old home in Switzer­land. His ex­ten­sive knowl­edge of nat­ural his­to­ry makes it some­what re­mark­able to find that from first to last he steadi­ly re­ject­ed the doc­trine of evo­lu­tion, and af­firmed his be­lief in in­de­pen­dent cre­ations. When study­ing the su­per­fi­cial de­posits of the Brazil­ian plains in 1865, his vivid imag­ina­tion cov­ered even that wide trop­ical area, as it had cov­ered Switzer­land be­fore, with one vast glacier, ex­tend­ing from the An­des to the sea. This view, how­ev­er, has not been gen­er­al­ly ac­cept­ed. His dar­ing con­cep­tions were on­ly equalled by the un­wea­ried in­dus­try and gen­uine en­thu­si­asm with which he worked them out; and if in de­tails his labours were some­what de­fec­tive, it was on­ly be­cause he had ven­tured to at­tempt what was too much for any one man to ac­com­plish.

It may be in­ter­est­ing to men­tion that the charm­ing vers­es writ­ten by Longfel­low on “The fifti­eth birth­day of Agas­siz” were read by the au­thor at a din­ner giv­en to Agas­siz by the Sat­ur­day Club in Cam­bridge, Mass., in 1857.

Louis Agas­siz was twice mar­ried, and by his first wife he had an on­ly son, Alexan­der Agas­siz (q.v.), born in 1835; in 1850, af­ter her death, he mar­ried his sec­ond wife, Eliz­abeth Cabot Cary of Boston, Mass., af­ter­wards well known as a writ­er and as an ac­tive pro­mot­er of ed­uca­tion­al work in con­nex­ion with Rad­cliffe Col­lege (see an ar­ti­cle on Rad­cliffe Col­lege, by He­len Leah Reed in the New Eng­land Mag­azine for Jan­uary 1895).

AU­THOR­ITIES–L. Agas­siz, His Life and Cor­re­spon­dence, 2 vols., by E. C (Mrs) Agas­siz (Lon­don, 1885); Louis Agas­siz, His Life and Work, by C. F. Hold­er (New York and Lon­don, 1893). (H. B. Wo.)

AGATE, a term ap­plied not to a dis­tinct min­er­al species, but to an ag­gre­gate of var­ious forms of sil­ica, chiefly Chal­cedony (q.v..) Ac­cord­ing to Theophras­tus the agate (achates) was named from the riv­er Achates, now the Drillo, in Sici­ly, where the stone was orig­inal­ly found. Most agates oc­cur as nod­ules in erup­tive rocks, or an­cient lavas, where they rep­re­sent cav­ities orig­inal­ly pro­duced by the dis­en­gage­ment of vapour in the molten mass, and since filled, whol­ly or par­tial­ly, by siliceous mat­ter de­posit­ed in reg­ular lay­ers up­on the walls. Such agates, when cut trans­verse­ly, ex­hib­it a suc­ces­sion of par­al­lel lines, of­ten of ex­treme tenu­ity, giv­ing a band­ed ap­pear­ance to the sec­tion, whence such stones are known as band­ed agate, riband agate and striped agate. Cer­tain agates al­so oc­cur, to a lim­it­ed ex­tent, in veins, of which a no­table ex­am­ple is the beau­ti­ful brec­ciat­ed agate of Schlot­twitz, near We­sen­stein in Sax­ony–a stone most­ly com­posed of an­gu­lar frag­ments of agate ce­ment­ed with amethys­tine quartz.

In the for­ma­tion of an or­di­nary agate, it is prob­able that wa­ters con­tain­ing sil­ica in so­lu­tion–de­rived, per­haps, from the de­com­po­si­tion of some of the sil­icates in the la­va it­self–per­co­lat­ed through the rock, and de­posit­ed a siliceous coat­ing on the in­te­ri­or of the vapour-​vesi­cles. Vari­ations in the char­ac­ter of the so­lu­tion, or in the con­di­tions of de­posit, may have caused cor­re­spond­ing vari­ation in the suc­ces­sive lay­ers, so that bands . of chal­cedony of­ten al­ter­nate with lay­ers of crys­talline quartz, and oc­ca­sion­al­ly of opa­line sil­ica. By move­ment of the la­va, when orig­inal­ly vis­cous, the vesi­cles were in many cas­es drawn out and com­pressed, whence the min­er­al mat­ter with which they be­came filled as­sumed an elon­gat­ed form, hav­ing the longer ax­is in the di­rec­tion in which the mag­ma flowed. From the fact that these ker­nels are more or less al­mond-​shaped they are called amyg­dales, whilst the rock which en­clos­es them is known as an amyg­daloid. Sev­er­al vapour-​vesi­cles may unite while the rock is vis­cous, and thus form a large cav­ity which may be­come the home of an agate of ex­cep­tion­al size; thus a Brazil­ian geode, lined with amethyst, of the weight of 35 tons, was ex­hib­it­ed at the Dus­sel­dorf Ex­hi­bi­tion of 1902.

The first de­posit on the wall of a cav­ity, form­ing the “skin” of the agate, is gen­er­al­ly a dark green­ish min­er­al sub­stance, like celadonite, de­lessite or “green earth,” which are hy­drous sil­icates rich in iron, de­rived prob­ably from the de­com­po­si­tion of the augite in the moth­er-​rock., This green sil­icate may give rise by al­ter­ation to a brown ox­ide of iron (limonite), pro­duc­ing a rusty ap­pear­ance on the out­side of the agate-​nod­ule. The out­er sur­face of an agate, freed from its ma­trix, is of­ten pit­ted and rough, ap­par­ent­ly in con­se­quence of the re­moval of the orig­inal coat­ing. The first lay­er spread over the wall of the cav­ity has been called the “prim­ing,” and up­on this ba­sis ze­olitic min­er­als may be de­posit­ed, as was point­ed out by Dr M. F. Hed­dle. Chal­cedony is gen­er­al­ly one of the ear­li­er de­posits and crys­tal­lized quartz one of lat­er for­ma­tion. Tubu­lar chan­nels, usu­al­ly choked with siliceous de­posits, are of­ten vis­ible in sec­tions of agate, and were for­mer­ly re­gard­ed, es­pe­cial­ly by L. von Buch and J. Nog­gerath, as in­lets of in­fil­tra­tion, by which the siliceous so­lu­tions gained ac­cess to the in­te­ri­or of the amyg­daloidal cav­ity. It seems like­ly, how­ev­er, that the so­lu­tion tran­sud­ed through the walls gen­er­al­ly, pen­etrat­ing the chal­cedonic lay­ers, as Hed­dle main­tained, by os­mot­ic ac­tion. Much of the chal­cedony in an agate is known, from the method of ar­ti­fi­cial­ly stain­ing the stone, to be read­ily per­me­able. It was ar­gued by E. Reusch that the cav­ities were al­ter­nate­ly filled and emp­tied by means of in­ter­mit­tent hot springs car­ry­ing sil­ica; while G. Lange, of Idar, sug­gest­ed that the ten­sion of the con­fined steam might pierce an out­let through some weak point in the coat­ing of gelati­nous sil­ica, de­posit­ed on the walls, so that the tubes would be chan­nels of egress rather than of ingress–a view sup­port­ed by Hed­dle, who de­scribed them as “tubes of es­cape.”

It some­times hap­pens that hor­izon­tal de­posits, or stra­ta usu­al­ly opa­line in char­ac­ter, are formed on the floor of a cav­ity af­ter the walls have been lined with suc­ces­sive lay­ers of chal­cedony. Many agates are hol­low, since de­po­si­tion has not pro­ceed­ed far enough to fill the cav­ity, and in such cas­es the last de­posit com­mon­ly con­sists of quartz, of­ten amethys­tine, hav­ing the apices of the crys­tals di­rect­ed to­wards the free space, so as to form a crys­tal-​lined cav­ity or geode.

When the de­posits in an agate have been formed on a crop of crys­tals, or on a ru­gose base, the cross-​sec­tion presents a zigzag pat­tern, rather like the plan of a fortress with salient and re­tir­ing an­gles, whence the stone is termed for­ti­fi­ca­tion agate. If the sec­tion shows con­cen­tric cir­cles, due ei­ther to sta­lac­titic growth or to de­po­si­tion in the form of boss­es and beads on the floor, the stone is known as ring agate or eye agate. A Mex­ican agate, show­ing on­ly a sin­gle eye, has re­ceived the name of “cy­clops.” In­clud­ed mat­ter of a green colour, like frag­ments of “green earth,” em­bed­ded in the chal­cedony and dis­posed in fil­aments and oth­er forms sug­ges­tive of veg­etable growth, gives rise to moss agate. These in­or­gan­ic en­clo­sures in the agate have been some­times de­scribed, even af­ter mi­cro­scop­ic ex­am­ina­tion, as true veg­etable struc­tures. Den­drit­ic mark­ings of black or brown colour, due to in­fil­tra­tion of ox­ides of man­ganese and iron, pro­duce the va­ri­ety of agate known as Mocha stone. Agates of ex­cep­tion­al beau­ty of­ten pass in trade un­der the name of Ori­en­tal agate. Cer­tain stones, when ex­am­ined in thin sec­tions by trans­mit­ted light, show a diffrac­tion spec­trum, due to the ex­treme del­ica­cy of the suc­ces­sive bands, whence they are termed rain­bow agates.

On the dis­in­te­gra­tion of the ma­trix in which the agates are em­bed­ded, they are set free, and, be­ing by their siliceous na­ture ex­treme­ly re­sis­tant to the ac­tion of air and wa­ter, re­main as nod­ules in the soil and grav­el, or be­come rolled as peb­bles in the streams. Such is the ori­gin of the “Scotch peb­bles,” used as or­na­men­tal stones. They are agates de­rived from the an­desitic lavas of Old Red Sand­stone age, chiefly in the Ochils and the Sid­laws. In like man­ner, the South Amer­ican agates, so large­ly cut and pol­ished at the present time, are found most­ly as boul­ders in the beds of rivers.

An enor­mous trade in agate-​work­ing is car­ried on in a small dis­trict in Ger­many, around Ober­stein on the Na­he, a trib­utary of the Rhine at Bin­gen. Here the in­dus­try was lo­cat­ed many cen­turies ago, in con­se­quence of the abun­dant oc­cur­rence of agates in the amyg­daloidal mela­phyre of the dis­trict, no­tably in the Gal­gen­berg, or Steinkaulen­berg, over­look­ing the vil­lage of Idar, on the Idar Bach, about two miles from Ober­stein. The abun­dant wa­ter-​pow­er in the neigh­bour­hood had al­so a share in the de­ter­mi­na­tion of the in­dus­tri­al site. At the present time, how­ev­er, steam pow­er and even elec­tric­ity are em­ployed in the mills of the Ober­stein dis­trict. Al­though the agatein­dus­try is still car­ried on there, es­pe­cial­ly at Idar, the stones op­er­at­ed on are not of in­dige­nous ori­gin, but are im­port­ed most­ly from Brazil (Rio Grande do Sul) and from Uruguay, where they were dis­cov­ered in 1827. Agate-​work­ing is al­so car­ried on to a lim­it­ed ex­tent at Wald­kirch in the Black For­est.

Most com­mer­cial agate is ar­ti­fi­cial­ly stained, so that stones nat­ural­ly unattrac­tive by their dull grey tints come to be valu­able for or­na­men­tal pur­pos­es. The art of stain­ing the stone is be­lieved to be very an­cient. Pos­si­bly re­ferred to by Pliny (bk. xxxvii. cap. 75), it was cer­tain­ly prac­tised at an ear­ly date by the Ital­ian cameo-​work­ers, and from Italy a knowl­edge of the art–long kept se­cret and prac­tised tra­di­tion­al­ly–passed in the ear­ly part of the 19th cen­tu­ry to the agate-​work­ers in Ger­many, by whom it has since been great­ly de­vel­oped. The colour­ing mat­ter is ab­sorbed by the poros­ity of the stone, but dif­fer­ent stones and even dif­fer­ent lay­ers in the same stone ex­hib­it great vari­ation in ab­sorp­tive pow­er. The Brazil­ian agates lend them­selves read­ily to col­oration, while the Ger­man agates are much less re­cep­tive.

To pro­duce a dark brown or black colour, the stone is kept per­haps for two or three weeks in a sac­cha­rine so­lu­tion, or in olive oil, at a mod­er­ate tem­per­ature. Af­ter re­moval from this medi­um, the agate is well washed and then di­gest­ed for a short time in sul­phuric acid, which en­ter­ing the pores chars or car­bonizes the ab­sorbed sug­ar or oil. Cer­tain lay­ers of chal­cedony are prac­ti­cal­ly im­per­me­able, and these con­se­quent­ly re­main un­coloured, so that an al­ter­na­tion of dark and white bands is ob­tained, thus giv­ing rise to an onyx. If stained too dark, the colour may be “drawn,” or light­ened, by the ac­tion of ni­tric acid.

Agate is stained red, so as to form car­nelian and sar­donyx, by means of fer­ric ox­ide. This may be de­rived from any iron com­pound nat­ural­ly present in the stone, es­pe­cial­ly from limonite by de­hy­dra­tion on bak­ing. Some stones are “burnt” by mere ex­po­sure to the heat of the sun, where­by the brown colour pass­es to red. Usu­al­ly, how­ev­er, an iron-​salt, like fer­rous sul­phate, is ar­ti­fi­cial­ly in­tro­duced in so­lu­tion and then de­com­posed by heat, so as to form in the pores a rich red pig­ment.

A blue colour, sup­posed to ren­der the agate rather like lapis lazuli, is pro­duced by us­ing first an iron salt and then a so­lu­tion of fer­ro­cyanide or fer­ri­cyanide of potas­si­um; a green colour, like that of chryso­prase, is ob­tained by means of salts of nick­el or of chromi­um; and a yel­low tint is de­vel­oped by the ac­tion of hy­drochlo­ric acid.

Among the us­es to which agate is ap­plied may be men­tioned the for­ma­tion of knife-​edges of del­icate bal­ances, small mor­tars and pes­tles for chem­ical work, bur­nish­ers and writ­ing styles, um­brel­la-​han­dles, pa­per-​knives, seals, brooches and oth­er triv­ial or­na­ments. Most of these are cut and pol­ished in the Ober­stein dis­trict, at a very cheap rate, from South Amer­ican stones.

Nu­mer­ous lo­cal­ities in the Unit­ed States and Cana­da yield agates, as de­scribed by Dr G. F. Kunz. They are abun­dant in the trap rocks of the Lake Su­pe­ri­or re­gion, some of the finest com­ing from Michipi­coten Is­land, On­tario. A lo­cal­ity on the shore of the lake is called Agate Bay. Wood agate, or aga­tized wood, is not in­fre­quent­ly found in Col­orado, Cal­ifor­nia and else­where in the West, the most no­table lo­cal­ity be­ing the fa­mous “sili­ci­fied for­est” known as Chal­cedony Park, in Apache coun­ty, Ari­zona. Here there are vast num­bers of wa­ter-​rolled logs of sili­ci­fied wood, in rocks of Tri­as­sic age, but on­ly a small quan­ti­ty of the wood is fine enough for or­na­men­tal pur­pos­es. The cel­lu­lar tis­sue of the veg­etable mat­ter is filled, or even re­placed, by var­ious siliceous min­er­als like chal­cedony, jasper, crys­talline quartz and se­mi-​opal, the sil­ica hav­ing prob­ably been in­tro­duced by ther­mal wa­ters. Some of the agate shows the mi­cro­scop­ic struc­ture of arau­car­ian wood. The aga­tized wood is some­times known by the In­di­an name of shi­narump.

In In­dia agates oc­cur abun­dant­ly in the amyg­daloidal va­ri­eties of the Dec­can and Ra­jma­hal traps, and as peb­bles in the de­tri­tus de­rived from these rocks. Some of the finest are found in the agate-​grav­els near Ratan­pur, in Ra­jpi­pla. The trade in agates has been car­ried on from ear­ly times at Cam­bay, where the stones are cut and pol­ished. Agates are al­so worked at Jub­bul­pore.

In many parts of New South Wales, agates, re­sult­ing from the dis­in­te­gra­tion of trap rocks, are com­mon in the riv­er-​beds and old drifts. They oc­cur al­so in Queens­land, as at Agate Creek, run­ning in­to the Gilbert riv­er. South Africa like­wise yields nu­mer­ous agates, es­pe­cial­ly in the grav­els of the Or­ange and Vaal rivers.

It should be not­ed that in Eng­land agates are found not on­ly in old lavas, like the an­desites of the Cheviots, but al­so to a lim­it­ed ex­tent in the Dolomitic Con­glom­er­ate, an old beachde­posit of Tri­as­sic age in the Mendips and the neigh­bour­hood of Bris­tol. They are al­so found as weath­ered peb­bles in the drift of Lich­field in Stafford­shire.

For Scot­tish agates see M. F. Hed­dle, “On the Struc­ture of Agates,” Trans. Ge­olog. Soc. Glas­gow, vol. xi. part ii., 1900, p. 153; and Min­er­al­ogy of Scot­land (1901), vol. i. p. 58; J. G. Good­child, Proc. Phys. Soc. Ed­in­burgh, vol. xiv., 1899, p. 191. For the agate-​in­dus­try see G. Lange, Die Halbe­del­steine (Kreuz­nach, 1868). For Amer­ican agates, G. F. Kunz, Gems and Pre­cious Stones of North Amer­ica (1890), p. 128. For agates in gen­er­al see Max Bauer’s Pre­cious Stones, trans­lat­ed by L. J. Spencer (Lon­don, 1904). (F. W. R.n)

AGATHA, SAINT, the pa­tron saint of Cata­nia, Sici­ly, where her fes­ti­val is cel­ebrat­ed on the 5th of Febru­ary. The leg­end is that she was a na­tive of Sici­ly (prob­ably of Cata­nia, though Paler­mo al­so claims her), of no­ble birth and great beau­ty. She re­pelled the ad­vances of the Ro­man pre­fect sent by the em­per­or De­cius to gov­ern Sici­ly, and was by his or­ders bru­tal­ly tor­tured and fi­nal­ly sent to the stake. As soon as the fire was light­ed, an earth­quake oc­curred, and the peo­ple in­sist­ed on her re­lease. She died in prison on the 5th of Febru­ary 251. The res­cue of Cata­nia from fire dur­ing an erup­tion of Mount Et­na was lat­er at­tribut­ed to St Agatha’s veil.

AGATH­ANGELUS, AGATH­ANGE or AKATHANKE­LOS, Ar­me­ni­an his­to­ri­an, lived dur­ing the 4th cen­tu­ry, and wrote a His­to­ry of the Reign of Der­tad, or Tiri­dates, and of the Preach­ing of St Gre­go­ry the Il­lu­mi­na­tor. The text of this his­to­ry has been con­sid­er­ably al­tered, but it has al­ways been in high favour with the Ar­me­ni­ans. It has been trans­lat­ed in­to sev­er­al lan­guages, and Greek and Latin trans­la­tions are found in the Ac­ta Sanc­to­rum Bol­lan­dis­tarum, tome vi­ii. As known to us the his­to­ry con­sists of three parts, a his­to­ry of St Gre­go­ry and his com­pan­ions, the doc­trine of Gre­go­ry, and the con­ver­sion of Ar­me­nia to Chris­tian­ity.

See V. Lan­glois, Col­lec­tion des his­to­riens an­ciens et mod­ernes de l’Ar­me­nie (Paris, 1868).

AGATH­ARCHIDES, or AGATH­ARCHUS, of Cnidus, Greek his­to­ri­an and ge­og­ra­pher, lived in the time of Ptole­my Philome­tor (181-146 B.C.) and his suc­ces­sors. Amongst oth­er works, he wrote trea­tis­es on Asia, Eu­rope and The Red Sea. In­ter­est­ing ex­tracts from the last, of some length, are pre­served in Photius (cod. 213), who prais­es the style of the au­thor, which was mod­elled on that of Thucy­dides.

See H. Leopol­di, De Agath­archide Cni­dio Dis­ser­ta­tio (1892); C. W. Muller, Frag­men­ta His­tori­co­rum Graeco­rum, iii., and Ge­ographi Grae­ci Mi­nores, i.; E. H. Bun­bury, Hist. of An­cient Ge­og­ra­phy, ii. (1879).

AGATH­ARCHUS, an Athe­ni­an painter of the 5th cen­tu­ry B.C. He is said by Vit­ru­vius to have been the first to paint a scene for the act­ing of tragedies. Hence some writ­ers, such as Karl Wo­er­mann, have sup­posed that he in­tro­duced per­spec­tive and il­lu­sion in­to paint­ing. This is a mis­tak­en view, for an­cient writ­ers know noth­ing of can­vas scenes; the back­ground paint­ed by Agath­archus was the wood­en front of the stage build­ing, and it was paint­ed, not with ref­er­ence to any par­tic­ular play, but as a per­ma­nent dec­ora­tive back­ground, rep­re­sent­ing no doubt a palace or tem­ple. Agath­archus is said to have been seized by Al­cib­iades and com­pelled by him to paint the in­te­ri­or of his house, which shows that at the time (about 435 B.C.) dec­ora­tive paint­ing of rooms was the fash­ion.

AGATH­IAS (c. A.D. 536-582), of My­ri­na in Ae­olis, Greek po­et and his­to­ri­an. He stud­ied law at Alexan­dria, com­plet­ed his train­ing at Con­stantino­ple and prac­tised as an ad­vo­cate (scholas­ti­cus) in the courts. Lit­er­ature, how­ev­er, was his favourite pur­suit. He wrote a num­ber of short love-​po­ems in epic me­tre, called Daph­ni­aca. He next put to­geth­er a kind of an­thol­ogy, con­tain­ing epi­grams by ear­li­er and con­tem­po­rary po­ets and him­self, un­der the ti­tle of a Cy­cle of new Epi­grams. About a hun­dred epi­grams by Agath­ias have been pre­served in the Greek An­thol­ogy and show con­sid­er­able taste and el­egance. Af­ter the death of Jus­tini­an (565), some of Agath­ias’s friends per­suad­ed him to write the his­to­ry of his own times. This work, in five books, be­gins where Pro­copius ends, and is the chief au­thor­ity for the pe­ri­od 552-558. It deals chiefly with the strug­gles of the Byzan­tine army, un­der the com­mand of the eu­nuch Nars­es, against the Goths, Van­dals, Franks and Per­sians. The au­thor prides him­self on his hon­esty and im­par­tial­ity, but he is lack­ing in judg­ment and knowl­edge of facts; the work, how­ev­er, is valu­able from the im­por­tance of the events of which it treats. Gib­bon con­trasts Agath­ias as “a po­et and rhetori­cian” with Pro­copius “a states­man and sol­dier.”

AU­THOR­ITIES.–Edi­tio prin­ceps, by B. Vul­ca­nius (1594); in the Bonn Cor­pus Scrip­to­rum Byz. Hist., by B. G. Niebuhr (1828); in Migne, Pa­trolo­gia Grae­ca, lxxxvi­ii.; L. Din­dorf, His­tori­ci Grae­ci Mi­nores (1871); W. S. Teuf­fel, “Agath­ias von Myrine,” in Philole­gus (i. 1846); C. Krum­bach­er, Geschichte der byzan­tinis­chen Lit­ter­atur (2nd ed. 1897).

AGATHO, pope from 678 to 681, was born in Sici­ly. He is note­wor­thy as the pope who or­dered St Wil­frid to be re­stored to his bish­opric at York in 679, and as the first to cease pay­ment of the trib­ute hith­er­to paid on elec­tion to the em­per­or at Con­stantino­ple. It was dur­ing his pon­tif­icate that the 6th oe­cu­meni­cal coun­cil was held at Con­stantino­ple, to which he sent his legates and those from a Ro­man coun­cil held in 679. Agatho died on the 10th of Jan­uary 681.

AGATH­OCLES (361-289 B.C.), tyrant of Syra­cuse, was born at Ther­mae Himeraeae (mod. Ter­mi­ni Imerese) in Sici­ly. The son of a pot­ter who had re­moved to Syra­cuse, he learned his fa­ther’s trade, but af­ter­wards en­tered the army. In 333 he mar­ried the wid­ow of his pa­tron Damas, a dis­tin­guished and wealthy cit­izen. He was twice ban­ished for at­tempt­ing to over­throw the oli­garchi­cal par­ty in Syra­cuse (q.v.); in 317 he re­turned with an army of mer­ce­nar­ies un­der a solemn oath to ob­serve the demo­crat­ic con­sti­tu­tion which was then set up. Hav­ing ban­ished or mur­dered some 10,000 cit­izens, and thus made him­self mas­ter of Syra­cuse, he cre­at­ed a strong army and fleet and sub­dued the greater part of Sici­ly. War with Carthage fol­lowed. In 310 Agath­ocles, de­feat­ed and be­sieged in Syra­cuse, took the des­per­ate re­solve of break­ing through the block­ade and at­tack­ing the en­emy in Africa. Af­ter sev­er­al vic­to­ries he was at last com­plete­ly de­feat­ed (306) and fled se­cret­ly to Sici­ly. Af­ter con­clud­ing peace with Carthage, Agath­ocles styled him­self king of Sici­ly, and es­tab­lished his rule over the Greek cities of the is­land more firm­ly than ev­er. Even in his old age he dis­played the same rest­less en­er­gy, and is said to have been med­itat­ing a fresh at­tack on Carthage at the time of his death. His last years were ha­rassed by ill-​health and the tur­bu­lence of his grand­son Ar­cha­gath­us, at whose in­sti­ga­tion he is said to have been poi­soned; ac­cord­ing to oth­ers, he died a nat­ural death. He was a born lead­er of mer­ce­nar­ies, and, al­though he did not shrink from cru­el­ty to gain his ends, he af­ter­wards showed him­self a mild and pop­ular “tyrant.”

See Justin xxii., xxi­ii.; Diodor­us Sicu­lus xix., xxi., xxii. (fol­lows gen­er­al­ly Timaeus who had a spe­cial grudge against Agath­ocles); Poly­bius ix. 23; Schu­bert, Geschichte des Agath­ok­les (1887); Grote, His­to­ry of Greece, ch. 97; al­so SICI­LY, His­to­ry. AGATH­ODAE­MON; in Greek mythol­ogy, the “good spir­it” of corn­fields and vine­yards. It was the cus­tom of the Greeks to drink a cup of pure wine in his hon­our at the end of each meal (Aristo­phanes, Eq­ui­tes, 106). He was al­so re­gard­ed as the pro­tect­ing spir­it of the state and of in­di­vid­uals. He was of­ten ac­com­pa­nied by ‘Agathe Tuche (good for­tune), and in this as­pect may be com­pared with the Ro­man Bonus Even­tus (Pliny, Nat Hist. xxxvi. 23), and Ge­nius. He is rep­re­sent­ed in works of art in the form of a ser­pent, or of a young man with a cor­nu­copia and a bowl in one hand, and a pop­py and ears of corn in the oth­er.

See Ger­hard, Uber Agath­oda­mon und Bona Dea (Berlin, 1849).

AGATH­ODAE­MON, of Alexan­dria, map de­sign­er, prob­ably lived in the 2nd cen­tu­ry A.D. Some MSS. of the Ge­og­ra­phy of Ptole­my con­tain twen­ty-​sev­en maps, which are stat­ed to have been drawn by Agath­odae­mon of Alexan­dria, who “de­lin­eat­ed the whole world ac­cord­ing to the eight books of Ptole­my’s ge­og­ra­phy.” As Ptole­my speaks of II­inakes to ac­com­pa­ny his trea­tise, these maps were prob­ably the work of a con­tem­po­rary act­ing un­der his in­struc­tions. About 1470 Nico­laus Doris, a Bene­dic­tine monk, brought out a re­vised edi­tion of them, the names be­ing in­sert­ed in Latin in­stead of Greek.

See Bun­bury, His­to­ry of An­cient Ge­og­ra­phy, ii.

AGATH­ON (c. 448-400 B.C.), Athe­ni­an trag­ic po­et, friend of Eu­ripi­des and Pla­to, best known from his men­tion by Aristo­phanes (Thes­mopho­ri­azusae) and in Pla­to’s Sym­po­sium, which de­scribes the ban­quet giv­en to cel­ebrate his ob­tain­ing a prize for a tragedy (416). He prob­ably died at the court of Archelaus, king of Mace­do­nia. He in­tro­duced cer­tain in­no­va­tions, and Aris­to­tle (Po­et­ica, 9) tells us that the plot of his 0An­tho1 was orig­inal, not, as usu­al­ly, bor­rowed from mytho­log­ical sub­jects.

See Aristo­phanes, Thes­moph. 59, 106, Ec­cles. 100; Pla­to, Symp. 198 c; Plutarch, Symp. 3; Aelian, Var. Hist. xiv. 13; Ritsch, Opus­cu­la, i.; frag­ments in Nauck, Tragi­co­rum Graeco­rum Frag­men­ta.

AGATH­YR­SI, a peo­ple of Thra­cian ori­gin, who in the ear­li­est his­tor­ical times oc­cu­pied the plain of the Maris (Maros), in the re­gion now known as Tran­syl­va­nia. Thyr­si is sup­posed to be a Scythi­an form of Trau­soi (Trausi), a Thra­cian tribe men­tioned by Stephanus of Byzan­tium. They are de­scribed by Herodotus (iv. 104) as of lux­uri­ous habits, wear­ing gold or­na­ments (the dis­trict is still au­rif­er­ous) and hav­ing wives in com­mon. They tat­tooed their bod­ies (pic­ti, Aeneid iv. 136), de­grees of rank be­ing in­di­cat­ed by the man­ner in which this was done, and coloured their hair dark blue. Like the Gal­lic Druids, they re­cit­ed their laws in a kind of sing-​song to pre­vent their be­ing for­got­ten, a prac­tice still in ex­is­tence in the days of Aris­to­tle (Prob­lema­ta, xix. 28). Va­lerius Flac­cus (Arg­onau­ti­ca, vi. 135) calls them Thyr­sage­tae, prob­ably in ref­er­ence to their cel­ebra­tion of or­gias­tic rites in hon­our of some di­vin­ity akin to the Thra­cian Diony­sus. In lat­er times the Agath­yr­si were driv­en far­ther north, and their name was un­known to the Ro­mans in their orig­inal home.

[26]. 88; Pom­po­nius Mela ii. 1. 10: W. Tomaschek, “Die al­ten Thrak­er,” in Sitzungs­ber. der philosophisch-​his­torischen Klasse der kaiserl. Akad. der Wiss. cxxvi­ii. (Vi­en­na, 1893).

AGAVE, a large botan­ical genus of the nat­ural or­der Amaryl­li­daceae, chiefly Mex­ican, but oc­cur­ring al­so in the south­ern and west­ern Unit­ed States and in cen­tral and trop­ical South Amer­ica. The plants have a large rosette of thick fleshy leaves gen­er­al­ly end­ing in a sharp point and with a spiny mar­gin; the stout stem is usu­al­ly short, the leaves ap­par­ent­ly spring­ing from the root. They grow slow­ly and flow­er but once af­ter a num­ber of years, when a tall stem or “mast” grows from the cen­tre of the leaf rosette and bears a large num­ber of short­ly tubu­lar flow­ers. Af­ter de­vel­op­ment of fruit the plant dies down, but suck­ers are fre­quent­ly pro­duced from the base of the stem which be­come new plants. The most fa­mil­iar species is Agave amer­icana (see fig.), a na­tive of trop­ical Amer­ica, the so-​called cen­tu­ry plant or Amer­ican aloe (the maguey of Mex­ico). The num­ber of years be­fore flow­er­ing oc­curs de­pends on the vigour of the in­di­vid­ual, the rich­ness of the soil and the cli­mate; dur­ing these years the plant is stor­ing in its fleshy leaves the nour­ish­ment re­quired for the ef­fort of flow­er­ing. Dur­ing the de­vel­op­ment of the in­flo­res­cence there is a rush of sap to the base of the young flow­er­stalk. In the case of A. amer­icana and oth­er species this is used by the Mex­icans to make their na­tion­al bev­er­age, pulque; the flow­er shoot is cut out and the sap col­lect­ed and sub­se­quent­ly fer­ment­ed. By dis­til­la­tion a spir­it called mescal is pre­pared. The leaves of sev­er­al species yield fi­bre, as for in­stance, A. rigi­da var. sisalana, sisal hemp (q.v.), A. de­cip­iens, false sisal hemp; A. amer­icana is the source of pi­ta fi­bre, and is used as a fi­bre plant in Mex­ico, the West In­dies and south­ern Eu­rope. The flow­er­ing stem of the last named, dried and cut in slices, forms

Agave amer­icana, Cen­tu­ry plant or Amer­ican aloe. About 1/40 nat. size. 1, Flow­er; 2, same flow­er split open above the ovary; 3, ovary cut across; 1, 2, and 3, about 1/2 nat. size.

From the Botan­ical Mag­azine, by per­mis­sion of Lovell Reeve and Co.

nat­ural ra­zor strops, and the ex­pressed juice of the leaves will lath­er in wa­ter like soap. In the Madras Pres­iden­cy the plant is ex­ten­sive­ly used for hedges along rail­roads. Agave amer­icana, cen­tu­ry plant, was in­tro­duced in­to Eu­rope about the mid­dle of the 16th cen­tu­ry and is now wide­ly cul­ti­vat­ed for its hand­some ap­pear­ance; in the var­ie­gat­ed forms the leaf has a white or yel­low marginal or cen­tral stripe from base to apex. As the leaves un­fold from the cen­tre of the rosette the im­pres­sion of the marginal spines is very con­spic­uous on the still erect younger leaves. The plants are usu­al­ly grown in tubs and put out in the sum­mer months, but in the win­ter re­quire to be pro­tect­ed from frost. They ma­ture very slow­ly and die af­ter flow­er­ing, but are eas­ily prop­agat­ed by the off­sets from the base of the stem.

AGDE, a town of south­ern France, in the de­part­ment of Her­ault, on the left bank of the riv­er of that name, 2 1/2 m. from the Mediter­ranean Sea and 32 m. S.W. of Mont­pel­li­er on the South­ern rail­way. Pop. (1906) 7146. The town lies at the foot of an ex­tinct vol­cano, the Mon­tagne St Loup, and is built of black vol­canic basalt, which gives it a gloomy ap­pear­ance. Over­look­ing the riv­er is the church of St An­dre, which dates part­ly from the 12th cen­tu­ry, and, till the Rev­olu­tion, was a cathe­dral. It is a plain and mas­sive struc­ture with crenelat­ed walls, and has the as­pect of a fortress rather than of a church. The ex­te­ri­or is di­ver­si­fied by arched re­cess­es form­ing machico­la­tions, and the same ar­chi­tec­tural fea­ture is re­pro­duced in the square tow­er which ris­es like a don­jon above the build­ing. The Canal du Mi­di, or Langue­doc canal, unit­ing the Garonne with the Mediter­ranean, pass­es un­der the walls of the town, and the mouth of the Her­ault forms a har­bour which is pro­tect­ed by a fort. The mar­itime com­merce of the town has de­clined, ow­ing part­ly to the neigh­bour­hood of Cette, part­ly to the shal­low­ness of the Her­ault. The fish­ing in­dus­try is, how­ev­er, still ac­tive. The chief pub­lic in­sti­tu­tions are the tri­bunal of com­merce and the com­mu­nal col­lege.

Agde is a place of great an­tiq­ui­ty and is said to have been found­ed un­der the name of agathe po­lis (Good City) by the Pho­caeans. The bish­opric was es­tab­lished about the year 400 and was sup­pressed in 1790.

SYN­OD OF AGDE (Con­cil­ium Aga­th­ense.)–With the per­mis­sion of the West Goth Alar­ic II. thir­ty-​five bish­ops of south­ern Gaul as­sem­bled in per­son or sent deputies to Agde on the 11th of Septem­ber 506. Cae­sar­ius, bish­op of Ar­les, presid­ed. The forty sev­en gen­uine canons of the syn­od deal with dis­ci­pline, church life, the alien­ation of ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal prop­er­ty and the treat­ment of Jews. While favour­ing sac­er­do­tal celiba­cy the coun­cil laid rather rigid re­stric­tions on monas­ti­cism. It com­mand­ed that the laity com­mu­ni­cate at Christ­mas, East­er and Whit­sun­tide. The canons of Agde are based in part on ear­li­er Gal­lic, African and Span­ish leg­is­la­tion; and some of them were re-​en­act­ed by lat­er coun­cils, and found their way in­to col­lec­tions such as the His­pana, Pseu­do-​Isidore and Gra­tian.

See Man­si vi­ii. 319 ff.; Hefele, Con­ciliengeschichte, 2nd edi­tion, ii. 649 ff. (En­glish trans­la­tion, iv. 76 ff.); Her­zog-​Hauck, Realen­cyk­lopadie, i. 242.

AGE (Fr. age, through late Lat. aetaticum, from ae­tas), a term used (1) of the di­vi­sions in­to which it is sug­gest­ed that hu­man his­to­ry may be di­vid­ed, whether re­gard­ed from the ge­olog­ical, cul­tur­al or moral as­pects, e.g. the palae­olith­ic age, the bronze age, the dark ages; (2) of an his­toric epoch or gen­er­ation; (3) of any pe­ri­od or stage in the phys­ical life of a per­son, an­imal or thing; (4) of that time of life at which the law at­tributes full re­spon­si­bil­ity for his or her acts to the in­di­vid­ual.

(1) From the ear­li­est times there would ap­pear to have been the be­lief that the his­to­ry of the earth and of mankind falls nat­ural­ly in­to pe­ri­ods or ages. Clas­si­cal mythol­ogy pop­ular­ized the idea. Hes­iod, for ex­am­ple, in his po­em Works and Days, de­scribes minute­ly five suc­ces­sive ages, dur­ing each of which the earth was peo­pled by an en­tire­ly dis­tinct race. The first or gold­en race lived in per­fect hap­pi­ness on the fruits of the un­tilled earth, suf­fered from no bod­ily in­fir­mi­ty, passed away in a gen­tle sleep, and be­came af­ter death guardian dae­mons of this world. The sec­ond or sil­ver race was de­gen­er­ate, and re­fus­ing to wor­ship the im­mor­tal gods, was buried by Jove in the earth. The third or brazen race, still more de­grad­ed, was war­like and cru­el, and per­ished at last by in­ter­nal vi­olence. The fourth or hero­ic race was a marked ad­vance up­on the pre­ced­ing, its mem­bers be­ing the heroes or de­mi-​gods who fought at Troy and Thebes, and who were re­ward­ed af­ter death by be­ing per­mit­ted to reap thrice a year the free pro­duce of the earth. The fifth or iron race, to which the po­et sup­pos­es him­self to be­long, is the most de­gen­er­ate of all, sunk so low in ev­ery vice that any new change must be for the bet­ter. Ovid, in his Meta­mor­phoses, fol­lows Hes­iod ex­act­ly as to nomen­cla­ture and very close­ly as to sub­stance. He makes the de­gen­er­acy con­tin­uous, how­ev­er, by omit­ting the hero­ic race or age, which, as Grote points out, was prob­ably in­tro­duced by Hes­iod, not as part of his di­dac­tic plan, but from a de­sire to con­cil­iate pop­ular feel­ing by in­clud­ing in his po­em the chief myths that were al­ready cur­rent among the Greeks. Var­ro rec­og­nized three ages: (1) from the be­gin­ning of mankind to the Del­uge, a quite in­def­inite pe­ri­od; (2) from the Del­uge to the First Olympiad, called the Myth­ical Pe­ri­od; (3) from the First Olympiad to his own time, called the His­toric Pe­ri­od. Lu­cretius di­vid­ed man’s his­to­ry in­to three cul­tur­al pe­ri­ods: (1) the Age of Stone; (2) the Age of Bronze; (3) the Age of Iron. He thus an­tic­ipat­ed the con­clu­sions of some of the great­est of mod­ern ar­chae­ol­ogists.

(2) A def­inite pe­ri­od in his­to­ry, dis­tin­guished by some spe­cial char­ac­ter­is­tic, such as great lit­er­ary ac­tiv­ity, is gen­er­al­ly styled, with some ap­pro­pri­ate ep­ithet, an age. It is usu­al, for ex­am­ple, to speak of the Age of Per­icles, the Au­gus­tan, the Eliz­abethan or the Vic­to­ri­an Ages; of the Age of the Cru­sades, the Dark Ages, the Mid­dle Ages, the Age of Steam. Such iso­lat­ed pe­ri­ods, with no con­ti­nu­ity or nec­es­sary con­nex­ion of any kind, are ob­vi­ous­ly quite dis­tinct from the ages or or­gan­ical­ly re­lat­ed pe­ri­ods in­to which philoso­phers have di­vid­ed the whole course of hu­man his­to­ry. Au­guste Comte, for in­stance, dis­tin­guish­es three ages ac­cord­ing to the state of knowl­edge in each, and he sup­pos­es that we are now en­ter­ing up­on the third of these. In the first age of his scheme knowl­edge is su­per­nat­ural or fic­ti­tious; in the sec­ond it is meta­phys­ical or ab­stract; in the third it is pos­itive or sci­en­tif­ic. Schemes some­what sim­ilar have been pro­posed by oth­er philoso­phers, chiefly of France and Ger­many, and seem to be re­gard­ed by them as es­sen­tial to any com­plete sci­ence of his­to­ry.

(3) The sub­ject of the du­ra­tion of hu­man and an­imal life does not fall with­in the scope of this ar­ti­cle, and the read­er is re­ferred to LONGEVI­TY. But the word “age” has been used by phys­iol­ogists to ex­press cer­tain nat­ural di­vi­sions in hu­man de­vel­op­ment and de­cay. These are usu­al­ly re­gard­ed as num­ber­ing five, viz. in­fan­cy, last­ing to the sev­enth year; child­hood to the four­teenth; youth to the twen­ty-​first; adult life till fifty; and old age.

(4) The di­vi­sion of hu­man life in­to pe­ri­ods for le­gal pur­pos­es is nat­ural­ly more sharp and def­inite than in phys­iol­ogy. It would be un­sci­en­tif­ic in the phys­iol­ogist to name any pre­cise year for the tran­si­tion from one of his stages to an­oth­er, inas­much as that dif­fers very con­sid­er­ably among dif­fer­ent na­tions, and even to some ex­tent among dif­fer­ent in­di­vid­uals of the same na­tion. But the law must nec­es­sar­ily be fixed and uni­form, and even where it pro­fess­es to pro­ceed ac­cord­ing to na­ture, must be more pre­cise than na­ture. The Ro­man law di­vid­ed hu­man life for its pur­pos­es in­to four chief pe­ri­ods, which had their sub­di­vi­sions–(1) in­fan­tia, last­ing till the close of the sev­enth year; (2) the pe­ri­od be­tween in­fan­tia and pu­ber­tas, males be­com­ing pu­beres at four­teen and fe­males at twelve; (3) ado­les­cen­tia, the pe­ri­od be­tween pu­ber­ty and ma­jor­ity; and (4) the pe­ri­od af­ter the twen­ty-​fifth year, when males be­came ma­jores. The first pe­ri­od was one of to­tal le­gal in­ca­pac­ity; in the sec­ond pe­ri­od a per­son could law­ful­ly do cer­tain spec­ified acts, but on­ly with the sanc­tion of his tu­tor or guardian; in the third the re­stric­tions were few­er, males be­ing per­mit­ted to man­age their own prop­er­ty, con­tract mar­riage and make a will; but ma­jor­ity was not reached un­til the age of twen­ty-​five. By En­glish law there are two great pe­ri­ods in­to which life is di­vid­ed–in­fan­cy, which lasts in both sex­es un­til the twen­ty-​first year, and man­hood or wom­an­hood. The pe­ri­od of in­fan­cy, again, is di­vid­ed in­to sev­er­al stages, marked by the grow­ing de­vel­op­ment both of rights and obli­ga­tions. Thus at twelve years of age a male may take the oath of al­le­giance; at four­teen both sex­es are held to have ar­rived at years of dis­cre­tion, and may there­fore choose guardians, give ev­idence and con­sent or dis­agree to a mar­riage. A fe­male has the last priv­ilege from the twelfth year, but the mar­riage can­not be cel­ebrat­ed un­til the ma­jor­ity of the par­ties with­out the con­sent of par­ents or guardians. At four­teen, too, both sex­es are ful­ly re­spon­si­ble to the crim­inal law. Be­tween sev­en and four­teen there is re­spon­si­bil­ity on­ly if the ac­cused be proved doli ca­pax, ca­pa­ble of dis­cern­ing be­tween right and wrong, the prin­ci­ple in that case be­ing that mali­tia sup­plet ae­tatem. At twen­ty-​one both males and fe­males ob­tain their full le­gal rights, and be­come li­able to all le­gal obli­ga­tions. A seat in the British par­lia­ment may be tak­en at twen­ty-​one. Cer­tain pro­fes­sions, how­ev­er, de­mand as a qual­ifi­ca­tion in en­trants a more ad­vanced age than that of le­gal man. hood. In the Church of Eng­land a can­di­date for dea­con’s or­ders must be twen­ty-​three (in the Ro­man Catholic Church, twen­ty-​two) and for priest’s or­ders twen­ty-​four years of age; and no cler­gy­man is el­igi­ble for a bish­opric un­der thir­ty. In Scot­land in­fan­cy is not a le­gal term. The time pre­vi­ous to ma­jor­ity, which, as in Eng­land, is reached by both sex­es at twen­ty-​one, is di­vid­ed in­to two stages: pupi­lage lasts un­til the at­tain­ment of pu­ber­ty, which the law fix­es at four­teen in males and twelve in fe­males; mi­nor­ity lasts from these ages re­spec­tive­ly un­til twen­ty-​one. Mi­nor­ity ob­vi­ous­ly cor­re­sponds in some de­gree to the En­glish years of dis­cre­tion, but a Scot­tish mi­nor has more per­son­al rights than an En­glish in­fant in the last stage of his in­fan­cy, e.g he may dis­pose by will of mov­able prop­er­ty, make con­tracts, car­ry on trade, and, as a nec­es­sary con­se­quence, is li­able to be de­clared a bankrupt. In France the year of ma­jor­ity is twen­ty-​one, and the nu­bile age eigh­teen for males and fif­teen for fe­males, with a re­stric­tion as to the con­sent of guardians. Age qual­ifi­ca­tion for the cham­ber of deputies is twen­ty-​five and for the sen­ate forty years. In Ger­many, ma­jor­ity is reached at twen­ty-​one, the nu­bile age is twen­ty for males and six­teen for fe­males, sub­ject to the con­sent of par­ents. With­out the con­sent of par­ents, the age is twen­ty-​five for males and twen­ty-​four for fe­males. The age qual­ifi­ca­tion for the Re­ich­stag is twen­ty-​five. In Aus­tria the age of ma­jor­ity is twen­ty-​four, and the nu­bile age four­teen for ei­ther sex, sub­ject to the con­sent of the par­ents. In Den­mark, qual­ified ma­jor­ity is reached at eigh­teen and full ma­jor­ity at twen­ty-​five. The nu­bile age is twen­ty for males and six­teen for fe­males. In Spain, ma­jor­ity is reached at twen­ty-​three; the nu­bile age is eigh­teen for males and six­teen for fe­males. In Greece the age of ma­jor­ity is twen­ty-​one, and the nu­bile age six­teen for males and four­teen for fe­males. In Hol­land the age of ma­jor­ity is twen­ty-​one, and the nu­bile age eigh­teen for males and six­teen for fe­males. In Italy, ma­jor­ity is reached at twen­ty-​one; the nu­bile age is eigh­teen for males and fif­teen for fe­males. In Switzer­land the age of ma­jor­ity is twen­ty, and the nu­bile age is eigh­teen for males and six­teen for fe­males. In the Unit­ed States the age qual­ifi­ca­tion for a pres­ident is thir­ty-​five, for a sen­ator thir­ty and for a rep­re­sen­ta­tive twen­ty-​five.

AGE­LADAS, or (as the name is spelt in an in­scrip­tion) HAGE­LAIDAS, a great Ar­give sculp­tor, who flour­ished in the lat­ter part of the 6th and the ear­ly part of the 5th cen­tu­ry B.C. He was spe­cial­ly not­ed for his stat­ues of Olympic vic­tors (of 520, 516, 508 B.C.); al­so for a stat­ue at Messene of Zeus, copied on the coins of that city. Age­ladas was said to have been the teach­er of My­ron, Phidias and Poly­cli­tus; this tra­di­tion is a tes­ti­mo­ny to his wide fame, though his­tor­ical­ly doubt­ful. We have no work of Age­ladas sur­viv­ing; but we have an in­scrip­tion which con­tains the name of his son Argeiadas.

AGEN, a city of south-​west­ern France, cap­ital of the de­part­ment of Lot-​et-​Garonne, 84 m. S.E. of Bor­deaux by the South­ern rail­way be­tween Bor­deaux and Toulouse. Pop. (1906) 18,640. It is skirt­ed on the west by the Garonne it­self, and on the north by its lat­er­al canal. The riv­er is crossed by a stone bridge, by a sus­pen­sion bridge for foot-​pas­sen­gers, and by a fine canal bridge, car­ry­ing the lat­er­al canal. Pleas­ant prom­enades stretch for some dis­tance along the right bank. The town is a med­ley of old nar­row streets con­trast­ing with the wide mod­ern boule­vards which cross it at in­ter­vals. The chief build­ing in Agen is the cathe­dral of St Caprais, the most in­ter­est­ing por­tion of which is the apse of the 12th cen­tu­ry with its three apse-​chapels; the transept dates from the 12th and 13th cen­turies, the nave from the 14th to the 16th cen­turies; the tow­er flank­ing the south fa­cade is mod­ern. The in­te­ri­or is dec­orat­ed with mod­ern paint­ings and fres­coes. There are sev­er­al oth­er church­es, among them the church of the Ja­cobins, a brick build­ing of the 13th cen­tu­ry, and the church of St Hi­laire of the 16th cen­tu­ry, which has a mod­ern tow­er. In the pre­fec­ture, a build­ing of the 18th cen­tu­ry, once the bish­op’s palace, is a col­lec­tion of his­tor­ical por­traits. The ho­tel de ville oc­cu­pies the for­mer Ho­tel du Pre­sidi­al, an ob­so­lete tri­bunal, and con­tains the mu­nic­ipal li­brary. Two hous­es of the 16th cen­tu­ry, the Ho­tel d’Estrades and the Ho­tel de Vaurs, are used as the mu­se­um, which has a rich col­lec­tion of fos­sils, pre­his­toric and Ro­man re­mains, and oth­er an­tiq­ui­ties and cu­riosi­ties. The po­et Jacques Jas­min was a na­tive of the town, which has erect­ed a stat­ue to him. Through its ex­cel­lent wa­ter com­mu­ni­ca­tion it af­fords an out­let for the agri­cul­tur­al pro­duce of the dis­trict, and forms an en­tre­pot of trade be­tween Bor­deaux and Toulouse. Agen is the seat of a bish­op. It is the seat of a court of ap­peal and a court of as­sizes, and has tri­bunals of first in­stance and of com­merce and a cham­ber of com­merce. There are al­so ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal sem­inar­ies, lycees for boys and girls, train­ing-​col­leges, a school of com­merce and in­dus­try, and a branch of the Bank of France. Agen is the mar­ket for a rich agri­cul­tur­al re­gion. The chief ar­ti­cles of com­merce are fat­tened poul­try, prunes (pruneaux d’Agen) and oth­er fruit, cork, wine, veg­eta­bles and cat­tle. Man­ufac­tures in­clude flour, dried plums, pate de foie gras and oth­er del­ica­cies, hard­ware, ma­nures, brooms, drugs, wo­ven goods tiles.

Agen (Agin­num) was the cap­ital Of the Celtic tribe of the Ni­tio­bro­ges, and the dis­cov­ery of ex­ten­sive ru­ins at­tests its im­por­tance un­der the Ro­mans. In lat­er times it was the cap­ital of the Age­nais. Its bish­opric was found­ed in the 4th cen­tu­ry. Agen changed hands more than once in the course of the Al­bi­gen­sian wars, and at their close a tri­bunal of in­qui­si­tion was es­tab­lished in the town and in­flict­ed cru­el per­se­cu­tion on the heretics. Dur­ing the re­li­gious wars of the 16th cen­tu­ry Agen took the part of the Catholics and open­ly joined the League in 1589.

See Labenazie, His­toire de la ville d’Agen et pays d’Agenois, ed. by A.-G. de Dampierre (1888); A. Ducom, La Com­mune d’Agen: es­sai sur son his­toire et son or­gan­isa­tion depuis son orig­ine jusqu’au traite de Bretigny (1892).

AGE­NAIS, or AGENOIS, a for­mer province of France. In an­cient Gaul it was the coun­try of the Ni­tio­bro­ges with Agin­num for its cap­ital, and in the 4th cen­tu­ry it was the Civ­itas Agen­nen­si­um which was a part of Aqui­tania Se­cun­da and which formed the dio­cese of Agen. Hav­ing in gen­er­al shared the for­tunes of Aquitaine dur­ing the Merovin­gian and Car­olin­gian pe­ri­ods, Age­nais next be­came an hered­itary countship in the part of the coun­try now called Gas­cony (Vas­co­nia.) In 1038 this countship was pur­chased by the dukes of Aquitaine and counts of Poitiers. The mar­riage of Eleanor of Aquitaine with Hen­ry Plan­ta­genet in 1152 brought it un­der the sway of Eng­land; but when Richard Coeur-​de-​Li­on mar­ried his sis­ter Joan to Ray­mund VI., count of Toulouse, in 1196, Age­nais formed part of the princess’s dowry; and with the oth­er es­tates of the last in­de­pen­dent count of Toulouse it lapsed to the crown of France in 1271. This, how­ev­er, was not for long; the king of France had to rec­og­nize the pri­or rights of the king of Eng­land to the pos­ses­sion of the countship, and re­stored it to him in 1279. Dur­ing the wars be­tween the En­glish and the French in the 14th and 15th cen­turies, Age­nais was fre­quent­ly tak­en and re­tak­en, the fi­nal re­treat of the En­glish in 1453 at last leav­ing the king of France in peace­able pos­ses­sion. Thence­forth Age­nais was no more than an ad­min­is­tra­tive term. At the end of the an­cien regime it formed part of the “Gou­verne­ment” of Gui­enne, and at the Rev­olu­tion it was in­cor­po­rat­ed in the de­part­ment of Lot-​et-​Garonne, of which it con­sti­tutes near­ly the whole. The ti­tle of count of Age­nais, which the kings of Eng­land had al­lowed to fall in­to desue­tude, was re­vived by the kings of France, and in 1789 was held by the fam­ily of the dukes of Riche­lieu.

There is no good his­to­ry of Age­nais; that pub­lished by Jules An­drieu in 1893 (His­toire de l’Age­nais, 2 vols.) be­ing quite in­ad­equate. The Bib­li­ogra­phie gen­erale de l’Age­nais, by the same au­thor (1886-1891, 3 vols.), may be found use­ful. (C. B.n)

AGENT (from Lat. agere, to act), a name ap­plied gen­er­al­ly to, any per­son who acts for an­oth­er. It has prob­ably been adopt­ed from France, as its func­tion in mod­ern civ­il law was oth­er­wise ex­pressed in Ro­man ju­rispru­dence. Ducange (s.v. Agentes) tells us that in the lat­er Ro­man em­pire the of­fi­cers who col­lect­ed the grain in the provinces for the troops and the house­hold, and af­ter­wards ex­tend­ed their func­tions so as to in­clude those of gov­ern­ment post­mas­ters or spies, came to be called agentes in re­bus, their ear­li­er name hav­ing been fru­men­tarii. In law an agent is a per­son au­tho­rized, ex­press­ed­ly or im­plied­ly, to act for an­oth­er, who is thence called the prin­ci­pal, and who is, in con­se­quence of, and to the ex­tent of, the au­thor­ity del­egat­ed by him, bound by the acts of his agent. (See PRIN­CI­PAL AND AGENT; FAC­TOR, &c.)

In Scot­land the procu­ra­tors or so­lic­itors who act in the prepa­ra­tion of cas­es in the var­ious law-​courts are called agents. (See SO­LIC­ITOR.)

In France the agents de change were for­mer­ly the class gen­er­al­ly li­censed for con­duct­ing all ne­go­ti­ations, as they were termed, whether in com­merce or the mon­ey mar­ket. The term has, how­ev­er, be­come prac­ti­cal­ly lim­it­ed to those who con­duct trans­ac­tions in pub­lic stock. The laws and reg­ula­tions as to courtiers, or those whose func­tions were more dis­tinct­ly con­fined to trans­ac­tions in mer­chan­dise, have been mixed up with those ap­pli­ca­ble to agents de change. Down to the year 1572 both func­tions were free; but at that pe­ri­od, part­ly for fi­nan­cial rea­sons, a sys­tem of li­cens­ing was adopt­ed at the sug­ges­tion of the chan­cel­lor, l’Ho­pi­tal. Among the oth­er rev­olu­tion­ary mea­sures of the year 1791, the pro­fes­sions of agent and courtier were again opened to the pub­lic. Many of the fi­nan­cial con­vul­sions of the en­su­ing years, which were due to more se­ri­ous caus­es, were at­tribut­ed to this in­dis­crim­inate re­moval of re­stric­tions, and they were reim­posed in 1801. From that pe­ri­od reg­ula­tions have been made from time to time as to the qual­ifi­ca­tions of agents, the se­cu­ri­ty to be found by them and the like. They are now re­gard­ed as pub­lic of­fi­cers, ap­point­ed, with cer­tain priv­ileges and du­ties, by the gov­ern­ment to act as in­ter­me­di­aries in ne­go­ti­at­ing trans­fers of pub­lic funds and com­mer­cial stocks and for deal­ing in metal­lic cur­ren­cy. (See STOCK EX­CHANGE: France.)

In diplo­ma­cy the term “agent” was orig­inal­ly ap­plied to all “diplo­mat­ic agents,” in­clud­ing am­bas­sadors. With the evo­lu­tion of the diplo­mat­ic hi­er­ar­chy, how­ev­er, the term grad­ual­ly sank un­til it was tech­ni­cal­ly ap­plied on­ly to the low­est class of “diplo­mat­ic agents,” with­out a rep­re­sen­ta­tive char­ac­ter and of a sta­tus and char­ac­ter so du­bi­ous that, by the reg­ula­tion of the congress of Vi­en­na, they were whol­ly ex­clud­ed from the im­mu­ni­ties of the diplo­mat­ic ser­vice. (See DIPLO­MA­CY.)

AGENT-​GEN­ER­AL, the term giv­en to a rep­re­sen­ta­tive in Eng­land of one of the self-​gov­ern­ing British colonies. Agents-​gen­er­al may be said to hold a po­si­tion mid-​way be­tween agents of provinces and am­bas­sadors of for­eign coun­tries. They are ap­point­ed, and their ex­pens­es and salaries pro­vid­ed, by the gov­ern­ments of the colonies they rep­re­sent, viz. Cape of Good Hope, Na­tal, the Transvaal, New South Wales, Queens­land, South Aus­tralia, Tas­ma­nia, Vic­to­ria, West­ern Aus­tralia, New Zealand and Cana­da (whose rep­re­sen­ta­tives are termed high com­mis­sion­ers). Their du­ties are to look af­ter the po­lit­ical and eco­nom­ic in­ter­ests of their colonies in Lon­don, to as­sist in all fi­nan­cial and com­mer­cial mat­ters in which their colonies may be con­cerned, such as ship­ping ar­range­ments and rates of freight, ca­ble com­mu­ni­ca­tions and rates, ten­ders for pub­lic works, &c., and to make known the prod­ucts of their colonies. Those colonies which are not un­der re­spon­si­ble gov­ern­ment are rep­re­sent­ed in Lon­don by crown agents.

AGE­SANDER, a Rho­di­an sculp­tor, whose ti­tle to fame is that he is men­tioned by Pliny (Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 37) as au­thor (with Poly­dorus and Athen­odor­us) of the group of the Lao­coon. In­scrip­tions re­cent­ly found at Lin­dus in Rhodes date Age­sander and Athen­odor­us to the pe­ri­od 42-21 B.C. The date of the Lao­coon seems thus fi­nal­ly set­tled, af­ter long con­tro­ver­sy. It rep­re­sents the cul­mi­na­tion of a sen­ti­men­tal or pa­thet­ic ten­den­cy in art, which is promi­nent in the some­what ear­li­er sculp­ture of Perga­mum. (See GREEK ART.)

AGE­SI­LAUS II., king of Spar­ta, of the Eu­ry­pon­tid fam­ily, was the son of Archi­damus II. and Eu­po­lia, and younger step-​broth­er of Agis II., whom he suc­ceed­ed about 401 B.C. Agis had, in­deed, a son Leo­ty­chides, but he was set aside as il­le­git­imate, cur­rent ru­mour rep­re­sent­ing him as the son of Al­cib­iades. Age­si­laus’ suc­cess was large­ly due to Lysander, who hoped to find in him a will­ing tool for the fur­ther­ance of his po­lit­ical de­signs; in this hope, how­ev­er, Lysander war dis­ap­point­ed, and the in­creas­ing pow­er of Age­si­laus soon led to his down­fall. In 396 Age­si­laus was sent to Asia with a force of 2000 Neo­damodes (en­franchized Helots) and 6000 al­lies to se­cure the Greek cities against a Per­sian at­tack. On the eve of sail­ing from Aulis he at­tempt­ed to of­fer a sac­ri­fice, as Agamem­non had done be­fore the Tro­jan ex­pe­di­tion, but the The­bans in­ter­vened to pre­vent it, an in­sult for which he nev­er for­gave them. On his ar­rival at Eph­esus a three months’ truce was con­clud­ed with Tis­sa­phernes, the satrap of Ly­dia and Caria, but ne­go­ti­ations con­duct­ed dur­ing that time proved fruit­less, and on its ter­mi­na­tion Age­si­laus raid­ed Phry­gia, where he eas­ily won im­mense booty since Tis­sa­phernes had con­cen­trat­ed his troops in Car­la. Af­ter spend­ing the win­ter in or­ga­niz­ing a cav­al­ry force, he made a suc­cess­ful in­cur­sion in­to Ly­dia in the spring of 395. Tithraustes was there­upon sent to re­place Tis­sa­phernes, who paid with his life for his con­tin­ued fail­ure. An armistice was con­clud­ed be­tween Tithraustes and Age­si­laus, who left the south­ern satrapy and again in­vad­ed Phry­gia, which he rav­aged un­til the fol­low­ing spring. He then came to an agree­ment with the satrap Pharn­abazus and once more turned south­ward. It was said that he was plan­ning a cam­paign in the in­te­ri­or, or even an at­tack on Ar­tax­erx­es him­self, when he was re­called to Greece ow­ing to the war be­tween Spar­ta and the com­bined forces of Athens, Thebes, Corinth, Ar­gos and sev­er­al mi­nor states. A rapid march through Thrace and Mace­do­nia brought him to Thes­saly, where he re­pulsed the Thes­salian cav­al­ry who tried to im­pede him. Re­in­forced by Pho­cian and Or­chome­ni­an troops and a Spar­tan army, he met the con­fed­er­ate forces at Coro­nea in Boeo­tia, and in a hot­ly con­test­ed bat­tle was tech­ni­cal­ly vic­to­ri­ous, but the suc­cess was a bar­ren one and he had to re­tire by way of Del­phi to the Pelo­pon­nese. Short­ly be­fore this bat­tle the Spar­tan navy, of which he had re­ceived the supreme com­mand, was to­tal­ly de­feat­ed off Cnidus by a pow­er­ful Per­sian fleet un­der Conon and Pharn­abazus.

Sub­se­quent­ly Age­si­laus took a promi­nent part in the Corinthi­an war, mak­ing sev­er­al suc­cess­ful ex­pe­di­tions in­to Corinthi­an ter­ri­to­ry and cap­tur­ing Lechaeum and Pi­raeum. The loss, how­ev­er, of a mo­ra, which was de­stroyed by Iph­icrates, neu­tral­ized these suc­cess­es, and Age­si­laus re­turned to Spar­ta. In 389 he con­duct­ed a cam­paign in Acar­na­nia, but two years lat­er the Peace of An­talci­das, which was warm­ly sup­port­ed by Age­si­laus, put an end to hos­til­ities. When war broke out afresh with Thebes the king twice in­vad­ed Boeo­tia (378, 377), and it was on his ad­vice that Cleom­bro­tus was or­dered to march against Thebes in 371. Cleom­bro­tus was de­feat­ed at Leuc­tra and the Spar­tan suprema­cy over­thrown. In 370 Age­si­laus tried to re­store Spar­tan pres­tige by an in­va­sion of Man­tinean ter­ri­to­ry, and his pru­dence and hero­ism saved Spar­ta when her en­emies, led by Epaminon­das, pen­etrat­ed La­co­nia that same year, and again in 362 when they all but suc­ceed­ed in seiz­ing the city by a rapid and un­ex­pect­ed march. The bat­tle of Man­tinea (362), in which Age­si­laus took no part, was fol­lowed by a gen­er­al peace: Spar­ta, how­ev­er, stood aloof, hop­ing even yet to re­cov­er her suprema­cy. In or­der to gain mon­ey for pros­ecut­ing the war Age­si­laus had sup­port­ed the re­volt­ed satraps, and in 361 he went to Egypt at the head of a mer­ce­nary force to aid Tachos against Per­sia. He soon trans­ferred his ser­vices to Tachos’s cousin and ri­val Nectan­abis, who, in re­turn for his help, gave him a sum of over 200 tal­ents. On his way home Age­si­laus died at the age of 84, af­ter a reign of some 41 years.

A man of small stature and unim­pres­sive ap­pear­ance, he was some­what lame from birth, a fact which was used as an ar­gu­ment against his suc­ces­sion, an or­acle hav­ing warned Spar­ta against a “lame reign.” He was a suc­cess­ful lead­er in gueril­la war­fare, alert and quick, yet cau­tious–a man, more­over, whose per­son­al brav­ery was un­ques­tioned. As a states­man he won him­self both en­thu­si­as­tic ad­her­ents and bit­ter en­emies, but of his pa­tri­otism there can be no doubt. He lived in the most fru­gal style alike at home and in the field, and though his cam­paigns were un­der­tak­en large­ly to se­cure booty, he was con­tent to en­rich the state and his friends and to re­turn as poor as he had set forth. . The worst trait in his char­ac­ter is his im­pla­ca­ble ha­tred of Thebes, which led di­rect­ly to the bat­tle of Leuc­tra and Spar­ta’s fall from her po­si­tion of suprema­cy.

See lives of Age­si­laus by Xenophon (the pan­egyric of a friend), Cor­nelius Nepos and Plutarch; Xenophon’s Hel­leni­ca and Diodor­us xiv., xv. Among mod­ern au­thor­ities, be­sides the gen­er­al his­to­ries of Greece, J. C. F. Man­so, Spar­ta, iii. 39 ff.; G. F. Hertzberg, Das Leben des Konigs Age­si­laos II. von Spar­ta (1856); Buttmann, Age­si­laus Sohn des Archi­damus (1872); C. Haupt, Age­si­laus in Asien (1874); E. von Stern, Geschichte der spar­tanis­chen und the­ban­is­chen Hege­monie (1884). (M. N. T.)

AG­GLOM­ER­ATE (from the Lat. ag­glom­er­are, to form in­to a ball, glo­mus, glom­eris), a term used in botany, mean­ing crowd­ed in a close clus­ter or head, and, in ge­ol­ogy, ap­plied to the ac­cu­mu­la­tions of coarse vol­canic ejec­ta­men­ta such as fre­quent­ly oc­cur near ex­tinct or ac­tive vol­ca­noes. Ag­glom­er­ates in the ge­olog­ical sense, with which this ar­ti­cle is con­cerned, con­sist typ­ical­ly of blocks of var­ious ig­neous rocks, mixed of­ten with more or less ma­te­ri­al of rudi­men­ta­ry ori­gin and em­bed­ded in a fin­er-​grained ma­trix, sim­ilar in na­ture to the coars­er frag­ments. As dis­tin­guished from or­di­nary ash beds or tuffs, they are es­sen­tial­ly coars­er, less fre­quent­ly well-​bed­ded; they are less per­sis­tent and tend to oc­cur lo­cal­ly, but may at­tain a very great thick­ness. Show­ers of fine ash may be dis­tribut­ed over a wide area of coun­try and will form thin lay­ers of great ex­tent. Coars­er ac­cu­mu­la­tions gath­er on­ly near the ac­tu­al fo­ci of erup­tion (craters, fis­sures, &c.). When the ac­tiv­ity of a vol­canic vent comes to an end, the ori­fice is of­ten choked by mass­es of de­bris, which will in time be­come com­pact­ed in­to firm ag­glom­er­ates. Hence rocks of this type very com­mon­ly mark the sites of necks, the re­mains of once-​ac­tive vol­canic craters. In this con­nex­ion they are of es­pe­cial in­ter­est to ge­ol­ogists, as it is al­ways im­por­tant to be able to lo­cate the ex­act points at which vol­canic prod­ucts, such as lavas and ash-​beds, were emit­ted.

The blocks in ag­glom­er­ates vary great­ly in size. Some are thir­ty or forty feet in di­am­eter, and weigh many tons; these are usu­al­ly pieces of the stra­ta through which the vol­cano has forced an out­let. They are nev­er far from the crater; most of them, in fact, lie with­in its bound­aries, and cas­es are known in which enor­mous mass­es of this kind (half an acre in area) have been found in such sit­ua­tions. They are mass­es which have been dis­lodged, by fis­sures and land­slides, from the crater’s walls and have tum­bled in­to the cav­ity. Pieces of sand­stone, lime­stone and shale oc­cur in the ag­glom­er­ates mixed with vol­canic ma­te­ri­als, and very of­ten have been baked and part­ly re­crys­tal­lized by con­tact with the hot ig­neous rocks and the gas­es dis­charged by the vol­cano. At Vesu­vius such blocks of al­tered lime­stone are rich in new min­er­als and are well known to col­lec­tors.

Ag­glom­er­ates al­so are usu­al­ly full of vol­canic bombs. These are spongy glob­ular mass­es of la­va which have been shot from the crater at a time when liq­uid molten la­va was ex­posed in it, and was fre­quent­ly shat­tered by the sud­den out­bursts of steam. These bombs were more or less vis­cous at the mo­ment of ejec­tion and by ro­ta­tion in the air ac­quired their spheroidal form. They are com­mon­ly one or two feet in di­am­eter, but spec­imens as large as nine or twelve feet have been ob­served. There is less va­ri­ety in their com­po­si­tion at any vol­canic cen­tre than in the case of the for­eign blocks above de­scribed. They cor­re­spond in na­ture to the la­va which at the time fills the crater of the vol­cano, and as this varies on­ly very slow­ly the bombs be­long most­ly to on­ly a few kinds of rock and are sim­ilar in com­po­si­tion to the la­va flows.

Crys­talline mass­es of a dif­fer­ent kind oc­cur in some num­bers in cer­tain ag­glom­er­ates. They con­sist of vol­canic min­er­als very much the same as those formed in the lavas, but ex­hibit­ing cer­tain pe­cu­liar­ities which in­di­cate that they have formed slow­ly un­der pres­sure at con­sid­er­able depths. Hence they bear a re­sem­blance to plu­ton­ic ig­neous rocks, but are more cor­rect­ly to be re­gard­ed as ag­glom­er­ations of crys­tals formed with­in the liq­uid la­va as it slow­ly rose to­wards the sur­face, and at a sub­se­quent pe­ri­od cast out by vi­olent steam ex­plo­sions. The sani­dinites of the Eifel be­long to this group. At Vesu­vius, As­cen­sion, St Vin­cent and many oth­er vol­ca­noes, they form a not in­con­sid­er­able part of the coars­er ash-​beds. Their com­mon­est min­er­als are olivine, anor­thite, horn­blende, augite, bi­otite and leucite.

Ag­glom­er­ates oc­cur wher­ev­er vol­ca­noes are known. In many parts of Britain they at­tain a great de­vel­op­ment ei­ther in beds al­ter­nat­ing with lavas or as the ma­te­ri­al oc­cu­py­ing necks. In the lat­ter case they are of­ten pen­etrat­ed by dikes. They al­so show a steep, an­gu­lar, fun­nel-​shaped dip (e.g. Arthur’s Seat, Ed­in­burgh), and may con­tain thin lay­ers of clay or ashy sand-​stone, which gath­ered in the crater dur­ing in­ter­vals of re­pose. (J. S. F.)

AG­GLU­TI­NA­TION (Lat. ad, and gluten, glutinare, lit­er­al­ly to fas­ten to­geth­er with glue), a term used tech­ni­cal­ly in philol­ogy for the method of word-​for­ma­tion by which two sig­nif­icant words or roots are joined to­geth­er in a sin­gle word to ex­press a com­bi­na­tion of the two mean­ings each of which re­tains its force. This jux­ta­po­si­tion or con­join­ing of roots is char­ac­ter­is­tic of lan­guages such as the Turk­ish and Japanese, which are there­fore known as ag­glu­ti­na­tive, as op­posed to oth­ers, known gener­ical­ly as in­flex­ion­al, in which dif­fer­ences of ter­mi­na­tion or com­bi­na­tions in which all sep­arate iden­ti­ty dis­ap­pears are pre­dom­inant.

The term was al­so for­mer­ly used by as­so­ci­ation­ist philoso­phers for those men­tal as­so­ci­ations which were re­gard­ed as pe­cu­liar­ly close. Com­bi­na­tion in its sim­plest form has been called Ag­glu­ti­na­tion by W. Wundt.

AG­GRA­VA­TION (from Lat. ad, in­creas­ing, and gravis, heavy), the mak­ing any­thing graver or more se­ri­ous, es­pe­cial­ly of of­fences; al­so used as syn­ony­mous with “ir­ri­ta­tion.” In the canon law “ag­gra­va­tion” was a form of ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal cen­sure, threat­en­ing ex­com­mu­ni­ca­tion af­ter three dis­re­gard­ed ad­mo­ni­tions.

AG­GRE­GA­TION (from the Lat. ad, to, gre­gare, to col­lect to­geth­er), in physics, a col­lec­tive term for the forms or states in which mat­ter ex­ists. Three pri­ma­ry “states of ag­gre­ga­tion” are rec­og­nized–gaseous, liq­uid and sol­id. Gen­er­al­ly, if a sol­id be heat­ed to a cer­tain tem­per­ature, it melts or fus­es, as­sum­ing the liq­uid con­di­tion (see FU­SION); if the heat­ing be con­tin­ued the liq­uid boils and be­comes a vapour (see VA­POR­IZA­TION.) On the oth­er hand, if a gas be suf­fi­cient­ly cooled and com­pressed, it liq­ue­fies; this tran­si­tion is treat­ed the­oret­ical­ly in the ar­ti­cle CON­DEN­SA­TION OF GAS­ES, and ex­per­imen­tal­ly in the ar­ti­cle LIQ­UID GAS­ES.

AG­GTELEK, a vil­lage of Hun­gary, in the coun­ty of Go­mor, sit­uat­ed to the south of Rozs­nyo, on the road from Bu­dapest to Dob­si­na. Pop. (1900) 557. In the neigh­bour­hood is the cel­ebrat­ed Ag­gtelek or Barad­la cav­ern, one of the largest and most re­mark­able sta­lac­tite grot­tos in Eu­rope. It has a length, to­geth­er with its ram­ifi­ca­tions, of over 5 miles, and is formed of two cav­erns–one known for sev­er­al cen­turies, and an­oth­er dis­cov­ered by the nat­ural­ist Adolf Schmidl in 1856. Two en­trances give ac­cess to the grot­to, an old one ex­treme­ly nar­row, and a new one, made in 1890, through which the ex­plo­ration of the cav­ern can be made in about 8 hours, half the time it took be­fore. The cav­ern is com­posed of a labyrinth of pas­sages and large and small halls, and is tra­versed by a stream. In these cav­erns there are nu­mer­ous sta­lac­tite struc­tures, which, from their cu­ri­ous and fan­tas­tic shapes, have re­ceived such names as the Im­age of the Vir­gin, the Mo­sa­ic Al­tar, &c. The prin­ci­pal parts are the Paradies with the finest sta­lac­tites, the As­tro­nom­ical Tow­er and the Bein­haus. Rats, frogs and bats form ac­tu­al­ly the on­ly an­imal life in the caves, but a great num­ber of an­te­dilu­vian an­imal bones have been found here, as well as hu­man bones and nu­mer­ous re­mains of pre­his­toric hu­man set­tle­ments.

AG­IN­COURT (AZ­IN­COURT), a vil­lage of north­ern France in the de­part­ment of Pas de Calais, 14 m. N.W. of St Pol by road, fa­mous on ac­count of the vic­to­ry, on the 25th of Oc­to­ber 1415, of Hen­ry V. of Eng­land over the French. The bat­tle was fought in the de­file formed by the wood of Ag­in­court and that of Trame­court, at the north­ern ex­it of which the army un­der d’Al­bret, con­sta­ble of France, had placed it­self so as to bar the way to Calais against the En­glish forces which had been cam­paign­ing on the Somme. The night of the 24th of Oc­to­ber was spent by the two armies on the ground, and the En­glish had but lit­tle shel­ter from the heavy rain which fell. Ear­ly on the 25th, St Crispin’s day, Hen­ry ar­rayed his lit­tle army (about 1000 men-​at-​arms, 6000 archers, and a few thou­sands of oth­er foot). It is prob­able that the usu­al three “bat­tles” were drawn up in line, each with its archers on the flanks and the dis­mount­ed men-​at-​arms in the cen­tre; the archers be­ing thrown for­ward in wedge-​shaped salients, al­most ex­act­ly as at Cre­cy (q.v..) The French, on the oth­er hand, were drawn up in three lines, each line formed in deep mass­es. They were at least four times more nu­mer­ous than the En­glish, but re­strict­ed by the na­ture of the ground to the same ex­tent of front, they were un­able to use their full weight (cf. Ban­nock­burn); fur­ther, the deep mud pre­vent­ed their ar­tillery from tak­ing part, and the cross­bow­men were as usu­al rel­egat­ed to the rear of the knights and men-​at-​arms. All were dis­mount­ed save a few knights and men-​at-​arms on the flanks, who were in­tend­ed to charge the archers of the en­emy. For three hours af­ter sun­rise there was no fight­ing; then Hen­ry, find­ing that the French would not ad­vance, moved his army far­ther in­to the de­file. The archers fixed the point­ed stakes, which they car­ried to ward off cav­al­ry charges, and opened the en­gage­ment with flights of ar­rows. The chival­ry of France, undis­ci­plined and care­less of the les­son of Cre­cy and Poitiers, was quick­ly stung in­to ac­tion, and the French mount­ed men charged, on­ly to be driv­en back in con­fu­sion. The con­sta­ble him­self head­ed the lead­ing line of dis­mount­ed men-​at-​arms; weight­ed with their ar­mour, and sink­ing deep in­to the mud with ev­ery step, they yet reached and en­gaged the En­glish men-​at-​arms; for a time the fight­ing was se­vere. The thin line of the de­fend­ers was borne back and King Hen­ry was al­most beat­en to the ground. But at this mo­ment the archers, tak­ing their hatch­ets, swords or oth­er weapons, pen­etrat­ed the gaps in the now dis­or­dered French, who could not move to cope with their un­ar­moured as­sailants, and were slaugh­tered or tak­en pris­on­ers to a man. The sec­ond line of the French came on, on­ly to be en­gulfed in the melee; its lead­ers, like those of the first line, were killed or tak­en, and the com­man­ders of the third sought and found their death in the bat­tle, while their men rode off to safe­ty. The clos­ing scene of the bat­tle was a half-​heart­ed at­tack made by a body of fugi­tives, which led mere­ly to the slaugh­ter of the French pris­on­ers, which was or­dered by Hen­ry be­cause he had not enough men both to guard them and to meet the at­tack. The slaugh­ter ceased when the as­sailants drew off. The to­tal loss of the En­glish is stat­ed at thir­teen men-​at-​arms (in­clud­ing the duke of York, grand­son of Ed­ward III.) and about 100 of the foot. The French lost 5000 of no­ble birth killed, in­clud­ing the con­sta­ble, 3 dukes, 5 counts and 90 barons; 1000 more were tak­en pris­on­ers, amongst them the duke of Or­leans (the Charles d’Or­leans of lit­er­ature).

See Sir Har­ris Nico­las, Bat­tle of Ag­in­court; Fortes­cue, His­to­ry of the British Army, vol. i.; and H. B. George, Bat­tles of En­glish His­to­ry.

AGIO (Ital. ag­gio, ex­change, dis­count, pre­mi­um), a term used in com­merce in three slight­ly dif­fer­ent con­nex­ions. (a) The vari­ations from fixed pars or rates of ex­change in the cur­ren­cies of dif­fer­ent coun­tries. For ex­am­ple, in most of the gold-​stan­dard coun­tries, the stan­dard coin is kept up to a uni­form point of fine­ness, so that an En­glish sovereign fresh from the mi­ni will bear the fol­low­ing con­stant re­la­tion to coins of oth­er coun­tries in a sim­ilar con­di­tion:–L. 1 =frcs. 25.221 =mks. 2O.429=$4.867, &c. This is what is known as the mint par of ex­change. But the mint par of ex­change, say, be­tween France and Eng­land is not nec­es­sar­ily the mar­ket val­ue of French cur­ren­cy in Eng­land, or En­glish cur­ren­cy in France. The bal­ance of trade be­tween the var­ious coun­tries is the fac­tor de­ter­min­ing the rate of ex­change. Should the bal­ance of trade (q.v.) be against Eng­land, mon­ey must be re­mit­ted to France in pay­ment of the in­debt­ed­ness, but ow­ing to the cost for,the trans­mis­sion of specie there will be a de­mand for bills drawn on Paris as a cheap­er and more ex­pe­di­tious method of send­ing mon­ey, and it there­fore will be nec­es­sary, in or­der to pro­cure the one of the high­er cur­rent val­ue, to pay a pre­mi­um for it, called the agio. (b) The term is al­so used to de­note the dif­fer­ence in ex­change be­tween two cur­ren­cies in the same coun­try; where sil­ver coinage is the le­gal ten­der, agio is some­times al­lowed for pay­ment in the more con­ve­nient form of gold, or where the pa­per cur­ren­cy of a coun­try is re­duced be­low the bul­lion which it pro­fess­es to rep­re­sent, an agio is payable on the ap­pre­ci­at­ed cur­ren­cy. (c) Last­ly, in some states the coinage is so de­based, ow­ing to the wear of cir­cu­la­tion, that the re­al is great­ly re­duced be­low the nom­inal val­ue. Sup­pos­ing that this re­duc­tion amounts to 5%, then if 100 sovereigns were of­fered as pay­ment of a debt in Eng­land while such sovereigns were cur­rent there at their nom­inal val­ue, they would be re­ceived as just pay­ment; but if they were of­fered as pay­ment of the same amount of debt in a for­eign state, they would be re­ceived on­ly at their in­trin­sic val­ue of L. 95, the ad­di­tion­al L. 5 con­sti­tut­ing the agio. Where the state keeps its coinage up to a stan­dard val­ue no agio is re­quired.

AGI­RA (for­mer­ly SAN FIL­IP­PO D’AR­GIRO), a town of the province of Cata­nia, Sici­ly, with a rail­way sta­tion 4 1/2 m. to the south of the town, 35 m. W. of Cata­nia. Pop. (1901) 17,738. It oc­cu­pies the site of Agyri­on, an an­cient Si­cel city which was ruled by tyrants, one of whom, Agyris, was the most pow­er­ful ruler in the cen­tre of Sici­ly. He was a con­tem­po­rary of Diony­sius I., and with him suc­cess­ful­ly re­sist­ed the Carthagini­ans when they in­vad­ed the ter­ri­to­ry of Agyri­um in 392 B.C. Agi­ra was not col­onized by the Greeks un­til Tim­oleon drove out the last tyrant in 339 B.C. and erect­ed var­ious splen­did build­ings of which no traces re­main. Agyri­on was the birth­place of the his­to­ri­an Diodor­us Sicu­lus.

AGIS, the name of four Spar­tan kings:–

(1) Son of Eu­rys­thenes, founder of the roy­al house of the Agiadae (Pau­sa­nias iii. 2.1). His ge­neal­ogy was traced through Aris­tode­mus, Aris­tom­achus, Cleo­daeus and Hyl­lus to Her­acles (Herodotus vii. 204), and he be­longs rather to mythol­ogy than to his­to­ry. Tra­di­tion as­cribed to him the cap­ture of the mar­itime town of He­los, which re­sist­ed his at­tempt to cur­tail its guar­an­teed rights, and the in­sti­tu­tion of the class of serfs called Helots (q.v..)

Epho­rus ap. Stra­bo, vi­ii. p. 365.

(2) Son of Archi­damus II., Eu­ry­pon­tid, com­mon­ly called Agis I. He suc­ceed­ed his fa­ther, prob­ably in 427 B.C., and from his first in­va­sion of At­ti­ca in 425 down to the close of the Pelo­pon­nesian war was the chief lead­er of the Spar­tan op­er­ations on land. Af­ter the con­clu­sion of the peace of Nicias (421 B.C.) he marched against the Ar­gives in de­fence of Ep­idau­rus, and af­ter skil­ful ma­noeu­vring sur­round­ed the Ar­give army, and seemed to have vic­to­ry with­in his grasp when he un­ac­count­ably con­clud­ed a four months’ truce and with­drew his forces. The Spar­tans were in­dig­nant, and when the Ar­gives and their al­lies, in fla­grant dis­re­gard of the truce, took Ar­ca­di­an Or­chome­nus and pre­pared to march on Tegea, their fury knew no bounds, and Agis es­caped hav­ing his house razed and a fine of 100,000 drach­mae im­posed on­ly by promis­ing to atone for his er­ror by a sig­nal vic­to­ry. This promise he bril­liant­ly ful­filled by rout­ing the forces of the Ar­give con­fed­er­acy at the bat­tle of Man­tinea (418), the moral ef­fect of which was out of all pro­por­tion to the loss­es in­flict­ed on the en­emy. In the win­ter 417-416 a fur­ther ex­pe­di­tion to Ar­gos re­sult­ed in the de­struc­tion of the half-​fin­ished Long Walls and the cap­ture of Hysi­ae. In 413, on the sug­ges­tion of Al­cib­iades, he for­ti­fied De­ce­lea in At­ti­ca, where he re­mained di­rect­ing op­er­ations un­til, af­ter the bat­tle of Aegospota­mi (405), he took the lead­ing part in the block­ade of Athens, which was end­ed in spring 404 by the sur­ren­der of the city. Sub­se­quent­ly he in­vad­ed and rav­aged Elis, forc­ing the Eleans to ac­knowl­edge the free­dom of their pe­ri­oe­ci and to al­low Spar­tans to take part in the Olympic games and sac­ri­fices. He fell ill on his re­turn from Del­phi, where he had gone to ded­icate a tithe of the spoils, and, prob­ably in 401, died at Spar­ta, where he was buried with un­par­al­leled solem­ni­ty and pomp.

Thuc. iii. 89, iv. 2. 6, v., vii. 19. 27, vi­ii.; Xenophon, Hel­leni­ca, i 1. ii. 2. 3, iii. 2. 3; Diodor­us xii. 35, xi­ii. 72, 73, 107; Pau­sa­nias iii. 8. 3-8; Plutarch, Lysander ix. 14. 22, Al­cib­iades 23-25, Ly­cur­gus 12, Age­si­laus i. 3, de Tran­quill. An­im. 6. (See PELO­PON­NESIAN WAR.)

(3) Son of Archi­damus III., of the Eu­ry­pon­tid line, com­mon­ly called Agis II. He suc­ceed­ed his fa­ther in 338 B.C., on the very day of the bat­tle of Chaeronea. Dur­ing Alexan­der’s Asi­at­ic cam­paign he re­volt­ed against Mace­do­nia (333 B.C.) and, with the aid of Per­sian mon­ey and ships and a force of 8000 Greek mer­ce­nar­ies, gained con­sid­er­able suc­cess­es in Crete. In the Pelo­pon­nese he rout­ed a force un­der Cor­ra­gus and, al­though Athens held aloof, he was joined by Elis, Achaea (ex­cept Pel­lene) and Ar­ca­dia, with the ex­cep­tion of Mega­lopo­lis, which the al­lies be­sieged. An­tipa­ter marched rapid­ly to its re­lief at the head of a large army, and the al­lied force was de­feat­ed af­ter a des­per­ate strug­gle (331) and Agis was slain.

Pau­sa­nias iii. 10. 5; Diodor­us xvii. 48, 62, 63; Justin xii. 1; Quin­tus Cur­tius iv. 1, 39, vi. 1; Ar­ri­an, An­aba­sis, ii. 13.

(4) Son of Eu­dami­das II., of the Eu­ry­pon­tid fam­ily, com­mon­ly called Agis III. He suc­ceed­ed his fa­ther prob­ably in 245 B.C., in his twen­ti­eth year. At this time the state had been brought to the brink of ru­in by the growth of avarice and lux­ury; there was a glar­ing in­equal­ity in the dis­tri­bu­tion of land and wealth, and the num­ber of full cit­izens had sunk to 700, of whom about 100 prac­ti­cal­ly mo­nop­olized the land. Though reared in the height of lux­ury he at once de­ter­mined to re­store the tra­di­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions of Ly­cur­gus, with the aid of Lysander, a de­scen­dant of the vic­tor of Aegospota­mi, and Man­dro­clei­das, a man of not­ed pru­dence and courage; even his moth­er, the wealthy Age­sis­tra­ta, threw her­self hearti­ly in­to the cause. A pow­er­ful but not dis­in­ter­est­ed al­ly was found in the king’s un­cle, Age­si­laus, who hoped to rid him­self of his debts with­out los­ing his vast es­tates. Lysander as ephor pro­posed on be­half of Agis that all debts should be can­celled and that La­co­nia should be di­vid­ed in­to 19,500 lots, of which 4500 should be giv­en to Spar­ti­ates, whose num­ber was to be re­cruit­ed from the best of the pe­ri­oe­ci and for­eign­ers, and the re­main­ing 15,000 to pe­ri­oe­ci who could bear arms. The Agiad king Leonidas hav­ing pre­vailed on the coun­cil to re­ject this mea­sure, though by a ma­jor­ity of on­ly one, was de­posed in favour of his son-​in-​law Cleom­bro­tus, who as­sist­ed Agis in bear­ing down op­po­si­tion by the threat of force. The abo­li­tion of debts was car­ried in­to ef­fect, but the land dis­tri­bu­tion was put off by Age­si­laus on var­ious pre­texts. At this point Ara­tus ap­pealed to Spar­ta to help the Achaeans in re­pelling an ex­pect­ed Ae­to­lian at­tack, and Agis was sent to the Isth­mus at the head of an army. In his ab­sence the open vi­olence and ex­tor­tion of Age­si­laus, com­bined with the pop­ular dis­ap­point­ment at the fail­ure of the agrar­ian scheme, brought about the restora­tion of Leonidas and the de­po­si­tion of Cleom­bro­tus, who took refuge at the tem­ple of Apol­lo at Tae­narum and es­caped death on­ly at the en­treaty of his wife, Leonidas’s daugh­ter Chilo­nis. On his re­turn Agis fled to the tem­ple of Athene Chal­cioe­cus at Spar­ta, but soon af­ter­wards he was treach­er­ous­ly in­duced to leave his asy­lum and, af­ter a mock­ery of a tri­al, was stran­gled in prison, his moth­er and grand­moth­er shar­ing the same fate (241). Though too weak and good-​na­tured to cope with the prob­lem which con­front­ed him, Agis was char­ac­ter­ized by a sin­cer­ity of pur­pose and a blend of youth­ful mod­esty with roy­al dig­ni­ty, which ren­der him per­haps the most at­trac­tive fig­ure in the whole of Spar­tan his­to­ry.

See Plutarch’s bi­og­ra­phy. Pau­sa­nias’ ac­counts (ii. 8. 5, vii. 7. 3, vi­ii. 10. 5-8, 27. 13) of his at­tack on Mega­lopo­lis, his seizure of Pel­lene and his death at Man­tinea fight­ing against the Ar­ca­di­ans, Achaeans and Sicy­oni­ans are with­out foun­da­tion (J. C. F. Man­so, Spar­ta, iii. 2. 123-127). See al­so Man­so, op. cit. iii. 1. 276-302; B. Niese, Geschichte der griechis­chen und make­donis­chcn Staat­en, ii. 299-303. (M. N. T.)

AG­IST­MENT. To “ag­ist” (from O. Fr. ag­is­ter, de­rived from gesir–Lat. jacere–to lie) is, in law, to take cat­tle to graze, for a renu­mer­ation. “Ag­ist­ment,” in the first in­stance, re­ferred more par­tic­ular­ly to the pro­ceeds of pas­turage in the king’s forests, but now means ei­ther (a) the con­tract for tak­ing in and feed­ing hors­es or oth­er cat­tle on pas­ture land, for the con­sid­er­ation of a week­ly pay­ment of mon­ey, or (b) the prof­it de­rived from such pas­tur­ing. Ag­ist­ment is a con­tract of bail­ment, and the bail­er is bound to take rea­son­able care of the an­imals en­trust­ed to him; he is re­spon­si­ble for dam­ages and in­jury which re­sult from or­di­nary ca­su­al­ties, if it be proved that such might have been pre­vent­ed by the ex­er­cise of great care. There is no lien on the cat­tle for the price of the ag­ist­ment, un­less by ex­press agree­ment. Un­der the Agri­cul­tur­al Hold­ings Act 1883, ag­ist­ed cat­tle can­not be dis­trained on for rent if there be oth­er suf­fi­cient dis­tress to be found, and if such oth­er dis­tress be not found, and the cat­tle be dis­trained, the own­er may re­deem them on pay­ing the price of their ag­ist­ment. The tithe of ag­ist­ment or “tithe of cat­tle and oth­er pro­duce of grass lands,” was for­mal­ly abol­ished by the act of union in 1707, on a mo­tion sub­mit­ted with a view to de­feat that mea­sure.

AG­ITA­TORS, or AD­JU­TA­TORS, the name giv­en to rep­re­sen­ta­tives elect­ed in 1647 by the dif­fer­ent reg­iments of the En­glish Par­lia­men­tary army. The word re­al­ly means an agent, but it was con­fused with “ad­ju­tant,” of­ten called “ag­itant,” a ti­tle fa­mil­iar to the sol­diers, and thus the form “ad­ju­ta­tor” came in­to use. Ear­ly in 1647 the Long Par­lia­ment wished ei­ther to dis­band many of the reg­iments or to send them to Ire­land. The sol­diers, whose pay was large­ly in ar­rear, re­fused to ac­cept ei­ther al­ter­na­tive, and eight of the cav­al­ry reg­iments elect­ed ag­ita­tors, called at first com­mis­sion­ers, who laid their grievances be­fore the three gen­er­als, and whose let­ter was read in the House of Com­mons on the 30th of April 1647. The oth­er reg­iments fol­lowed the ex­am­ple of the cav­al­ry, and the ag­ita­tors, who be­longed to the low­er ranks of the army, were sup­port­ed by many of the of­fi­cers, who showed their sym­pa­thy by sign­ing the Dec­la­ra­tion of the army. Cromwell and oth­er gen­er­als suc­ceed­ed to some ex­tent in paci­fy­ing the troops by promis­ing the pay­ment of ar­rears for eight weeks at once; but be­fore the re­turn of the gen­er­als to Lon­don par­lia­ment had again de­cid­ed to dis­band the army, and soon af­ter­wards fixed the 1st of June as the date on which this pro­cess was to be­gin. Again alarmed, the ag­ita­tors de­cid­ed to re­sist; a mutiny oc­curred in one reg­iment and the at­tempt at dis­band­ment failed. Then fol­lowed the seizure of the king by Cor­net Joyce, Cromwell’s def­inite ad­her­ence to the pol­icy of the army, the sign­ing of the man­ifestoes, a Hum­ble Rep­re­sen­ta­tion and a Solemn En­gage­ment, and the es­tab­lish­ment of the army coun­cil com­posed of of­fi­cers and ag­ita­tors. Hav­ing, at an as­sem­bly on Thriplow Heath, near Roys­ton, vir­tu­al­ly re­fused the of­fers made by par­lia­ment, the ag­ita­tors de­mand­ed a march to­wards Lon­don and the “purg­ing” of the House of Com­mons. Sub­se­quent events are part of the gen­er­al his­to­ry of Eng­land. Grad­ual­ly the ag­ita­tors ceased to ex­ist, but many of their ideas were adopt­ed by the Lev­ellers (q.v.), who may per­haps be re­gard­ed as their suc­ces­sors. Gar­diner says of them, “Lit­tle as it was in­tend­ed at the time, noth­ing was more cal­cu­lat­ed than the ex­is­tence of this elect­ed body of ag­ita­tors to give to the army that dis­tinc­tive po­lit­ical and re­li­gious char­ac­ter which it ul­ti­mate­ly bore.”

See S. R. Gar­diner, His­to­ry of the Great Civ­il War, vols. iii. and iv. (Lon­don, 1905).

AGLIAR­DI, AN­TO­NIO (1832- ), pa­pal diplo­ma­tist, was born at Colog­no (Berg­amo), Italy, on the 4th of Septem­ber 1832. He stud­ied the­ol­ogy and canon law, and, af­ter act­ing as parish priest in his na­tive dio­cese for twelve years, was sent by the pope to Cana­da as a bish­op’s chap­lain. On his re­turn he was ap­point­ed sec­re­tary to the Pro­pa­gan­da. In 1884 he was cre­at­ed by Leo XI­II. arch­bish­op of Cae­sarea in part­ibus and sent to In­dia to re­port on the es­tab­lish­ment of the hi­er­ar­chy there. In 1887 he again vis­it­ed In­dia, to car­ry out the terms of the con­cor­dat ar­ranged with Por­tu­gal. The same year he was ap­point­ed sec­re­tary to the Con­gre­ga­tion su­per ne­goti­is ec­cle­si­ae ex­traor­di­nari­is, in 1889 be­came pa­pal nun­cio at Mu­nich and in 1892 at Vi­en­na. Al­low­ing him­self to be in­volved in the ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal dis­putes by which Hun­gary was di­vid­ed in 1895, he was made the sub­ject of for­mal com­plaint by the Hun­gar­ian gov­ern­ment and in 1896 was re­called. His ser­vices were re­ward­ed by a Car­di­nalate and the arch­bish­opric of Fer­rara. In 1903 he was named vice-​chan­cel­lor of the Ro­man Church.

AG­NANO, LA­GO DI, a cir­cu­lar lake, 5 m. W. of Naples, Italy. It was ap­par­ent­ly not formed un­til the mid­dle ages, as it is not men­tioned by an­cient writ­ers; it was drained in 1870. It oc­cu­pied the crater of an ex­tinct vol­cano, 4 m. in cir­cum­fer­ence. On the south bank are the Stufe di S. Ger­mano, nat­ural sul­phure­ous vapour baths, and close by is the Grot­ta del Cane, from the floor of which warm car­bon­ic acid gas con­stant­ly ris­es to a height of 18 in., the fumes of which ren­der a dog in­sen­si­ble in a few sec­onds. It is men­tioned by Pliny (Nat. Hist. ii. 93). Re­mains of an ex­ten­sive Ro­man build­ing and some stat­ues have been dis­cov­ered close by.

AG­NATES (Ag­nati), in Ro­man law, per­sons re­lat­ed through males on­ly, as op­posed to cog­nates. Ag­na­tion was found­ed on the idea of the fam­ily held to­geth­er by the pa­tria potes­tas; cog­na­tio in­volves sim­ply the mod­ern idea of kin­dred.

AGNES, SAINT, a vir­gin mar­tyr of the Catholic Church. The leg­end of St Agnes is that she was a Ro­man maid, by birth a Chris­tian, who suf­fered mar­tyr­dom when but thir­teen dur­ing the reign of the em­per­or Dio­cle­tian, on the 21st of Jan­uary 304. The pre­fect Sem­pro­nius wished her to mar­ry his son, and on her re­fusal con­demned her to be out­raged be­fore her ex­ecu­tion, but her hon­our was mirac­ulous­ly pre­served. When led out to die she was tied to a stake, but the fag­gots would not burn, where­upon the of­fi­cer in charge of the troops drew his sword and struck off her head. St Agnes is the pa­tron saint of young girls, who, in ru­ral dis­tricts, for­mer­ly in­dulged in all sorts of quaint coun­try mag­ic on St Agnes’ Eve (20th-21st Jan­uary) with a view to dis­cov­er­ing their fu­ture hus­bands. This su­per­sti­tion has been im­mor­tal­ized in Keats’s po­em, “The Eve of St Agnes.” St Agnes’s bones are sup­posed to rest in the church of her name at Rome, orig­inal­ly built by Con­stan­tine and re­paired by Pope Hon­orius in the 7th cen­tu­ry. Here on her fes­ti­val (21st of Jan­uary) two lambs are spe­cial­ly blessed af­ter pon­tif­ical high mass, and their wool is lat­er wo­ven in­to pal­lia (see PAL­LI­UM.)

AGNES OF MER­AN (d. 1201), queen of France, was the daugh­ter of Bertold IV., duke of Mer­an in Tirol. She is called Marie by some of the chron­iclers. In June 1196 she mar­ried Philip II., king of France, who had re­pu­di­at­ed In­ge­borg of Den­mark in 1193. The pope es­poused the cause of In­ge­borg; but Philip did not sub­mit un­til 1200, when, in­ter­dict hav­ing been added to ex­com­mu­ni­ca­tion, he con­sent­ed to a sep­ara­tion from Agnes. She died in Ju­ly of the next year, at the cas­tle of Pois­sy, and was buried in the church of St Corentin, near Nantes. Her two chil­dren by Philip II., Philip, count of Cler­mont (d. 1234), and Mary, who mar­ried Philip, count of Na­mur, were le­git­imized by In­no­cent III. in 1201 on the de­mand of the king. Lit­tle is known of the per­son­al­ity of Agnes, be­yond the re­mark­able in­flu­ence which she ex­er­cised over Philip II. She has been made the hero­ine of a tragedy by Fran­cois Pon­sard, Agnes de Meranie.

See the notes of Robert David­sohn in Philipp II. Au­gust von Frankre­ich und In­ge­borg (Stuttgart, 1888). A ge­nealog­ical no­tice is fur­nished by the Chron­icon of the monk Al­ber­ic (Aubry) of Fontaines, (Al­ber­icus Tri­um Fontium) in Pertz, Scrip­tores, vol. xxi­ii. pp. 872 f., and by the Ge­nealo­gia Wet­ti­nen­sis, ibid. p. 229.

AG­NE­SI, MARIA GAE­TANA (1718-1799), Ital­ian math­emati­cian, lin­guist and philoso­pher, was born at Mi­lan on the 16th of May 1718, her fa­ther be­ing pro­fes­sor of math­emat­ics in the uni­ver­si­ty of Bologna. When on­ly nine years old she had such com­mand of Latin as to be able to pub­lish an elab­orate ad­dress in that lan­guage, main­tain­ing that the pur­suit of lib­er­al stud­ies was not im­prop­er for her sex. By her thir­teenth year she had ac­quired Greek, He­brew, French, Span­ish, Ger­man and oth­er lan­guages. Two years lat­er her fa­ther be­gan to as­sem­ble in his house at stat­ed in­ter­vals a cir­cle of the most learned men in Bologna, be­fore whom she read and main­tained a se­ries of the­ses on the most ab­struse philo­soph­ical ques­tions. Records of these meet­ings are giv­en in de Brosse’s Let­tres sur l’Ital­ie and in the Propo­si­tiones Philo­soph­icae, which her fa­ther caused to be pub­lished in 1738. These dis­plays, be­ing prob­ably not al­to­geth­er con­ge­nial to Maria, who was of a re­tir­ing dis­po­si­tion, ceased in her twen­ti­eth year, and it is even said that she had at that age a strong de­sire to en­ter a con­vent. Though the wish was not grat­ified, she lived from that time in a re­tire­ment al­most con­ven­tu­al, avoid­ing all so­ci­ety and de­vot­ing her­self en­tire­ly to the study of math­emat­ics. The most valu­able re­sult of her labours was the In­sti­tuzioni analitiche ad uso del­la gioven­tu ital­iana, a work of great mer­it, which was pub­lished at Mi­lan in 1748. The first vol­ume treats of the anal­ysis of fi­nite quan­ti­ties. and the sec­ond of the anal­ysis of in­finites­imals. A French trans­la­tion of the sec­ond vol­ume by P. T. d’An­telmy, with ad­di­tions by Charles Bossut (1730-1814), ap­peared at Paris in 1775; and an En­glish trans­la­tion of the whole work by John Col­son (1680-1760), the Lu­casian pro­fes­sor of math­emat­ics at Cam­bridge, was pub­lished in 1801 at the ex­pense of Baron Maseres. Madame Ag­ne­si al­so wrote a com­men­tary on the Traite an­aly­tique des sec­tions coniques of the mar­quis de l’Ho­pi­tal, which, though high­ly praised by those who saw it in manuscript, was nev­er pub­lished. She in­vent­ed and dis­cussed the curve known as the “witch of Ag­ne­si” (q.v.) or ver­siera. In 1750, on the ill­ness of her fa­ther, she was ap­point­ed by Pope Bene­dict XIV. to the chair of math­emat­ics and nat­ural Phi­los­ophy at Bologna. Af­ter the death of her fa­ther in 1752 she car­ried out a long-​cher­ished pur­pose by giv­ing her­self to the study of the­ol­ogy, and es­pe­cial­ly of the Fa­thers. Af­ter hold­ing for some years the of­fice of di­rec­tress of the Hos­pice Trivulzio for Blue Nuns at Mi­lan, she her­self joined the sis­ter­hood, and in this aus­tere or­der end­ed her days on the 9th of Jan­uary 1799.

Her sis­ter, MARIA TERE­SA AG­NE­SI (1724-1780), a well-​known Ital­ian pi­anist and com­pos­er, was born at Mi­lan in 1724. She com­posed sev­er­al can­tatas, two pi­anoforte con­cer­tos and five op­eras, Sofenis­be, Ciro in Ar­me­nia, Ni­tocri, Il Re Pa­store and In­sub­ria con­so­la­ta.

See An­to­nio Francesco Frisi, El­oge his­torique de Made­moi­selle Ag­ne­si, trans­lat­ed by Boulard (Paris, 1807); Mile­si-​Mo­jon, Vi­ta di M. G. Ag­ne­si (Mi­lan, 1836); J. Boy­er, “La Math­emati­ci­enne Ag­ne­si” in the Re­vue Catholique des re­vues fran­cais­es et etran­geres (Paris, 1897).

AG­NEW, DAVID HAYES (1818-1892), Amer­ican sur­geon, was born in Lan­cast­er coun­ty, Penn­syl­va­nia, on the 24th of Novem­ber 1818. He grad­uat­ed from the med­ical de­part­ment of the uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia in 1838, and a few years lat­er set up in prac­tice at Philadel­phia and be­came a lec­tur­er at the Philadel­phia School of Anato­my. He was ap­point­ed sur­geon at the Philadel­phia Hos­pi­tal in 1854 and was the founder of its patho­log­ical mu­se­um. For twen­ty-​six years (1863-1889) he was con­nect­ed with the med­ical fac­ul­ty of the uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia, be­ing elect­ed pro­fes­sor of op­er­ative surgery in 1870 and pro­fes­sor of the prin­ci­ples and prac­tice of surgery in the fol­low­ing year. From 1865 to 1884–ex­cept for a brief in­ter­val –he was a sur­geon at the Penn­syl­va­nia Hos­pi­tal. Dur­ing the Amer­ican Civ­il War he was con­sult­ing sur­geon in the Mow­er Army Hos­pi­tal, near Philadel­phia, and ac­quired con­sid­er­able rep­uta­tion for his op­er­ations in cas­es of gun-​shot wounds. He at­tend­ed as op­er­at­ing sur­geon when Pres­ident Garfield was fa­tal­ly wound­ed by the bul­let of an as­sas­sin in 1881. He was the au­thor of sev­er­al works, the most im­por­tant be­ing The Prin­ci­ples and Prac­tice of Surgery (1878-1883). He died at Philadel­phia on the 22nd of March 1892.

AG­NI, the Hin­du God of Fire, sec­ond on­ly to In­dra in the pow­er and im­por­tance at­tribut­ed to him in Vedic mythol­ogy. His name is the first word of the first hymn of the Rig-​ve­da: “Ag­ni, I en­treat, di­vine ap­point­ed priest of sac­ri­fice.” The sac­ri­fices made to Ag­ni pass to the gods, for Ag­ni is a mes­sen­ger from and to the gods; but, at the same time, he is more than a mere mes­sen­ger, he is an im­mor­tal, for an­oth­er hymn runs: “No god in­deed, no mor­tal is be­yond the might of thee, the mighty One. . . .” He is a god who lives among men, mirac­ulous­ly re­born each day by the fire-​drill, by the fric­tion of the two sticks which are re­gard­ed as his par­ents; he is the supreme di­rec­tor of re­li­gious cer­emonies and du­ties,and even has the pow­er of in­flu­enc­ing the lot of man in the fu­ture world. He is wor­shipped un­der a three­fold form, fire on earth, light­ning and the sun. His cult sur­vived the meta­mor­pho­sis of the an­cient Vedic na­ture-​wor­ship in­to mod­ern Hin­duism, and there still are in In­dia fire-​priests (ag­ni­hotri) whose du­ty is to su­per­in­tend his wor­ship. The sa­cred fire-​drill for procur­ing the tem­ple-​fire by fric­tion–sym­bol­ic of Ag­ni’s dai­ly mirac­ulous birth–is still used. In pic­to­ri­al art Ag­ni is al­ways rep­re­sent­ed as red, two-​faced, sug­gest­ing his de­struc­tive and benef­icent qual­ities, and with three legs and sev­en arms.

See W. J. Wilkins, Hin­du Mythol­ogy (Lon­don, 1900); A. A. Mac­donell, Vedic Mythol­ogy (Strass­burg, 1897).

AG­NOETAE (Gr. ag­noeo, to be ig­no­rant of), a mono­physite sect who main­tained that Christ’s hu­man na­ture was like oth­er men’s in all re­spects, in­clud­ing lim­it­ed knowl­edge. Its founder was Themistius, a dea­con in Alexan­dria in the 6th cen­tu­ry. The sect was anath­ema­tized by Gre­go­ry the Great.

AG­NOIOL­OGY (from Gr. ag­noi-​a, ig­no­rance), the sci­ence or study of ig­no­rance, which de­ter­mines its qual­ity and con­di­tions.

AG­NOS­TI­CISM. The term “ag­nos­tic” was in­vent­ed by Hux­ley in 1869 to de­scribe the philo­soph­ical and re­li­gious at­ti­tude of those who hold that we can have sci­en­tif­ic or re­al knowl­edge of phe­nom­ena on­ly, and that so far as what may lie be­hind phe­nom­ena is con­cerned–God, im­mor­tal­ity, &c.–there is no ev­idence which en­ti­tles us ei­ther to de­ny or aflirm any­thing. The at­ti­tude it­self is as old as Scep­ti­cism (q.v.); but the ex­pres­sions “ag­nos­tic” and “ag­nos­ti­cism” were ap­plied by Hux­ley to sum up his de­duc­tions from those con­tem­po­rary de­vel­op­ments of meta­physics with which the names of Hamil­ton (“the Un­con­di­tioned”) and Her­bert Spencer (“the Un­know­able”) were as­so­ci­at­ed; and it is im­por­tant, there­fore, to fix pre­cise­ly his own in­tel­lec­tu­al stand­point in the mat­ter. Though Hux­ley on­ly be­gan to use the term “ag­nos­tic” in 1869, his opin­ions had tak­en shape some time be­fore that date. In a let­ter to Charles Kings­ley (Septem­ber 23, 1860) he wrote very ful­ly con­cern­ing his be­liefs:–

“I nei­ther af­firm nor de­ny the im­mor­tal­ity of man. I see no rea­son for be­liev­ing it, but, on the oth­er hand, I have no means of dis­prov­ing it. I have no a pri­ori ob­jec­tions to the doc­trine. No man who has to deal dai­ly and hourly with na­ture can trou­ble him­self about a pri­ori dif­fi­cul­ties. Give me such ev­idence as would jus­ti­fy me in be­liev­ing in any­thing else, and I will be­lieve that. Why should I not? It is not half so won­der­ful as the con­ser­va­tion of force or the in­de­struc­tibil­ity of mat­ter. . . .

“It is no use to talk to me of analo­gies and prob­abil­ities. I know what I mean when I say I be­lieve in the law of the in­verse squares, and I will not rest my life and my hopes up­on weak­er con­vic­tions. . . .

“That my per­son­al­ity is the surest thing I know may be true. But the at­tempt to con­ceive what it is leads me in­to mere ver­bal sub­tleties. I have champed up all that chaff about the ego and the non-​ego, noume­na and phe­nom­ena, and all the rest of it, too of­ten not to know that in at­tempt­ing even to think of these ques­tions, the hu­man in­tel­lect floun­ders at once out of its depth.”

And again, to the same cor­re­spon­dent, the 5th of May 1863:–

“I have nev­er had the least sym­pa­thy with the a pri­ori rea­sons against or­tho­doxy, and I have by na­ture and dis­po­si­tion the great­est pos­si­ble an­tipa­thy to all the athe­is­tic and in­fi­del school. Nev­er­the­less I know that I am, in spite of my­self, ex­act­ly what the Chris­tian would call, and, so far as I can see, is jus­ti­fied in call­ing, athe­ist and in­fi­del. l can­not see one shad­ow or tit­tle of ev­idence that the great un­known un­der­ly­ing the phe­nomenon of the uni­verse stands to us in the re­la­tion of a Fa­ther–loves us and cares for us as Chris­tian­ity as­serts. So with re­gard to the oth­er great Chris­tian dog­mas, im­mor­tal­ity of soul and fu­ture state of re­wards and pun­ish­ments, what pos­si­ble ob­jec­tion can I–who am com­pelled per­force to be­lieve in the im­mor­tal­ity of what we call Mat­ter and Force, and in a very un­mis­tak­able present state of re­wards and pun­ish­ments for our deeds–have to these doc­trines? Give me a scin­til­la of ev­idence, and I am ready to jump at them.”

Of the ori­gin of the name “ag­nos­tic” to cov­er this at­ti­tude, Hux­ley gave (Coll. Ess. v. pp. 237-239) the fol­low­ing ac­count:–

“When I reached in­tel­lec­tu­al ma­tu­ri­ty, and be­gan to ask my­self whether I was an athe­ist, a the­ist or a pan­the­ist, a ma­te­ri­al­ist or an ide­al­ist, a Chris­tian or a free­thinker, I found that the more I learned and re­flect­ed, the less ready was the an­swer. The one thing on which most of these good peo­ple were agreed was the one thing in which I dif­fered from them. They were quite sure they had at­tained a cer­tain `gno­sis’–had more or less suc­cess­ful­ly solved the prob­lem of ex­is­tence; while I was quite sure that I had not, and had a pret­ty strong con­vic­tion that the prob­lem was in­sol­uble. This was my sit­ua­tion when I had the good for­tune to find a place among the mem­bers of that re­mark­able con­fra­ter­ni­ty of an­tag­onists, the Meta­phys­ical So­ci­ety. Ev­ery va­ri­ety of philo­soph­ical and the­olog­ical opin­ion was rep­re­sent­ed there; most of my col­leagues were -ists of one sort or an­oth­er; and I, the man with­out a rag of a be­lief to cov­er him­self with, could not fail to have some of the un­easy feel­ings which must have be­set the his­tor­ical fox when, af­ter leav­ing the trap in which his tail re­mained, he pre­sent­ed him­self to his nor­mal­ly elon­gat­ed com­pan­ions. So I took thought, and in­vent­ed what I con­ceived to be the ap­pro­pri­ate ti­tle of `ag­nos­tic.’ It came in­to my head as sug­ges­tive­ly an­ti­thet­ic to the `gnos­tic’ of Church his­to­ry, who pro­fessed to know so much about the very things of which I was ig­no­rant. To my great sat­is­fac­tion the term took.”

This ac­count is con­firmed by R. H. Hut­ton, who in 1881 wrote that the word “was sug­gest­ed by Hux­ley at a meet­ing held pre­vi­ous to the for­ma­tion of the now de­funct Meta­phys­ical So­ci­ety at Mr Knowles’s house on Clapham Com­mon in 1869, in my hear­ing. He took it from St Paul’s men­tion of the al­tar to the Un­known God.” Hut­ton here gives a vari­ant et­ymol­ogy for the word, which may be there­fore tak­en as part­ly de­rived from ag­nos­tos (the “un­known” God), and part­ly from an an­tithe­sis to “gnos­tic”; but the mean­ing re­mains the same in ei­ther case. The name, as Hux­ley said, “took”; it was con­stant­ly used by Hut­ton in the Spec­ta­tor and be­came a fash­ion­able la­bel for con­tem­po­rary un­be­lief in Chris­tian dog­ma. Hut­ton him­self fre­quent­ly mis­rep­re­sent­ed the doc­trine by de­scrib­ing it as “be­lief in an un­known and un­know­able God”; but ag­nos­ti­cism as de­fined by Hux­ley meant not be­lief, but ab­sence of be­lief, as much dis­tinct from be­lief on the one hand as from dis­be­lief on the oth­er; it was the half-​way house be­tween the two, where all ques­tions were “open.” All that Hux­ley asked for was ev­idence, ei­ther for or against; but this he be­lieved it im­pos­si­ble to get. Oc­ca­sion­al­ly he too mis-​stat­ed the mean­ing of the word he had in­vent­ed, and de­scribed ag­nos­ti­cism as mean­ing “that a man shall not say he knows or be­lieves what he has no sci­en­tif­ic ground for pro­fess­ing to know or be­lieve.” But as the late Rev. A. W. Mo­merie re­marked, this would mere­ly be “a def­ini­tion of hon­esty; in that sense we ought all to be ag­nos­tics.”

Ag­nos­ti­cism re­al­ly rests on the doc­trine of the Un­know­able, the as­ser­tion that con­cern­ing cer­tain ob­jects–among them the De­ity–we nev­er can have any “sci­en­tif­ic” ground for be­lief. This way of solv­ing, or pass­ing over, the ul­ti­mate prob­lems of thought has had many fol­low­ers in cul­tured cir­cles im­bued with the new phys­ical sci­ence of the day, and with dis­gust for the dog­mat­ic creeds of con­tem­po­rary or­tho­doxy; and its out­spo­ken and even ag­gres­sive vin­di­ca­tion by physi­cists of the em­inence of Hux­ley had a po­tent in­flu­ence up­on the at­ti­tude tak­en to­wards meta­physics, and up­on the form which sub­se­quent Chris­tian apolo­get­ics adopt­ed. As a nick­name the term “ag­nos­tic” was soon mis­used to cov­er any and ev­ery vari­ation of scep­ti­cism, and just as pop­ular preach­ers con­fused it with athe­ism (q.v.) in their de­nun­ci­ations, so the cal­low free­thinker–fol­low­ing Ten­nyson’s path of “hon­est doubt”–classed him­self with the ag­nos­tics, even while he com­bined an in­stinc­tive­ly Chris­tian the­ism with a facile re­jec­tion of the his­tor­ical ev­idences for Chris­tian­ity.

The term is now less fash­ion­able, though the state of mind per­sists. Hux­ley’s ag­nos­ti­cism was a nat­ural con­se­quence of the in­tel­lec­tu­al and philo­soph­ical con­di­tions of the ’six­ties, when cler­ical in­tol­er­ance was try­ing to ex­com­mu­ni­cate sci­en­tif­ic dis­cov­ery be­cause it ap­peared to clash with the book of Gen­esis. But as the the­ory of evo­lu­tion was ac­cept­ed, a new spir­it was grad­ual­ly in­tro­duced in­to Chris­tian the­ol­ogy, which has turned the con­tro­ver­sies be­tween re­li­gion and sci­ence in­to oth­er chan­nels and re­moved the temp­ta­tion to flaunt a dis­agree­ment. A sim­ilar ef­fect has been pro­duced by the philo­soph­ical re­ac­tion against Her­bert Spencer, and by the per­cep­tion that the canons of ev­idence re­quired in phys­ical sci­ence must not be ex­alt­ed in­to uni­ver­sal rules of thought. It does not fol­low that jus­ti­fi­ca­tion by faith must be elim­inat­ed in spir­itu­al mat­ters where sight can­not fol­low, be­cause the physi­cist’s du­ty and suc­cess lie in pin­ning be­lief sole­ly on ver­ifi­ca­tion by phys­ical phe­nom­ena, when they alone are in ques­tion; and for mankind gen­er­al­ly, though pos­si­bly not for an ex­cep­tion­al man like Hux­ley, an im­po­tent sus­pen­sion of judg­ment on such is­sues as a fu­ture life or the Be­ing of God is both un­sat­is­fy­ing and de­mor­al­iz­ing.

It is im­pos­si­ble here to do more than in­di­cate the path out of the dif­fi­cul­ties raised by Hux­ley in the let­ter to Kings­ley quot­ed above. They in­volve an elab­orate dis­cus­sion, not on­ly of Chris­tian ev­idences, but of the en­tire sub­ject-​mat­ter alike of Ethics and Meta­physics, of Phi­los­ophy as a whole, and of the philoso­phies of in­di­vid­ual writ­ers who have dealt in their dif­fer­ent ways with the prob­lems of ex­is­tence and epis­te­mol­ogy. It is, how­ev­er, per­mis­si­ble to point out that, as has been ex­haus­tive­ly ar­gued by Pro­fes­sor J. Ward in his Gif­ford lec­tures for 1896-1898 (Nat­ural­ism and Ag­nos­ti­cism, 1899), Hux­ley’s chal­lenge ( “I know what I mean when I say I be­lieve in the law of the in­verse squares, and I will not rest my life and my hopes up­on weak­er con­vic­tions”) is one which a spir­itu­al­is­tic phi­los­ophy need not shrink from ac­cept­ing at the hands of nat­ural­is­tic ag­nos­ti­cism. If, as Hux­ley ad­mits, even putting it with un­nec­es­sary force against him­self,“the im­mor­tal­ity of man is not half so won­der­ful as the con­ser­va­tion of force or the in­de­struc­tibil­ity of mat­ter,” the ques­tion then is, how far a crit­ical anal­ysis of our be­lief in the last-​named doc­trines will leave us in a po­si­tion to re­gard them as the last stage in sys­tem­at­ic think­ing. It is the pit­fall of phys­ical sci­ence, im­mersed as its stu­dents are apt to be in prob­lems deal­ing with tan­gi­ble facts in the world of ex­pe­ri­ence, that there is a ten­den­cy among them to claim a su­pe­ri­or sta­tus of ob­jec­tive re­al­ity and fi­nal­ity for the laws to which their da­ta are found to con­form. But these gen­er­al­iza­tions are not ul­ti­mate truths, when we have to con­sid­er the na­ture of ex­pe­ri­ence it­self. “Be­cause ref­er­ence to the De­ity will not serve for a phys­ical ex­pla­na­tion in physics, or a chem­ical ex­pla­na­tion in chem­istry, it does not there­fore fol­low,” as Pro­fes­sor Ward says (op. cit. vol. i. p. 24), “that the sum to­tal of sci­en­tif­ic knowl­edge is equal­ly in­tel­li­gi­ble whether we ac­cept the the­is­tic hy­poth­esis or not. It is true that ev­ery item of sci­en­tif­ic knowl­edge is con­cerned with some def­inite re­la­tion of def­inite phe­nom­ena, and with noth­ing else; but, for all that, the sys­tem­at­ic or­ga­ni­za­tion of such items may quite well yield fur­ther knowl­edge, which tran­scends the spe­cial re­la­tions of def­inite phe­nom­ena.”

At the open­ing of the era of mod­ern sci­en­tif­ic dis­cov­ery, with all its fruit­ful new gen­er­al­iza­tions, the still more high­ly gen­er­al­ized laws of epis­te­mol­ogy and of the spir­itu­al con­sti­tu­tion of man might well baf­fle the physi­cist and lead his in­tel­lect to “floun­der.” It is fun­da­men­tal­ly nec­es­sary, in or­der to avoid such floun­der­ing, that the “knowl­edge” of things sen­si­ble should be kept dis­tinct from the “knowl­edge” of things spir­itu­al; yet in prac­tice they are con­stant­ly con­fused. When the physi­cist lim­its the term “knowl­edge’, to the con­clu­sions from phys­ical ap­pre­hen­sions, his re­fusal to ex­tend it to con­clu­sions from moral and spir­itu­al ap­pre­hen­sions is mere­ly the con­se­quence of an il­le­git­imate def­ini­tion. He re­lies on the va­lid­ity of his per­cep­tions of phys­ical facts; but the saint and the the­olo­gian are no less en­ti­tled to re­ly on the va­lid­ity of their moral and spir­itu­al ex­pe­ri­ences. In each case the da­ta rest on an ul­ti­mate ba­sis, un­demon­stra­ble, in­deed to any one who de­nies them (even if he be called mad for do­ing so), ex­cept by the con­tin­uous pro­cess of work­ing out their own proofs, and show­ing their con­sis­ten­cy with, or ne­ces­si­ty in, the scheme of things ter­res­tri­al on the one hand, or the mind and hap­pi­ness of man on the oth­er. The tests in each case dif­fer; and it is as ir­rel­evant for the the­olo­gian to dis­pute the “knowl­edge” of the physi­cist, by ar­gu­ments from faith and re­li­gion, as it is for the physi­cist to de­ny the “knowl­edge” of the the­olo­gian from the point of view of one who ig­nores the pos­si­bil­ity of spir­itu­al ap­pre­hen­sion al­to­geth­er. On the ground of sec­ular his­to­ry and sec­ular ev­idence both might rea­son­ably meet, as re­gards the facts, though not per­haps as to their in­ter­pre­ta­tion; but the rea­son why they ul­ti­mate­ly dif­fer is to be found sim­ply in the dif­fer­ence of their men­tal at­ti­tude to­wards the na­ture of “knowl­edge,’-it­self a dif­fer­ence of opin­ion as to the na­ture of man.

In ad­di­tion to the lit­er­ature cit­ed above, see L. Stephen, An Ag­nos­tic’s Apol­ogy (1893); R. Flint, Ag­nos­ti­cism (1903); T. Bai­ley Saun­ders, The Quest of Faith, chap. ii. (1899); A. W. Benn, En­glish Ra­tio­nal­ism in the XIXth Cen­tu­ry (Lon­don, 1906). (H. CH.)

AG­NUS DEI, the fig­ure of a lamb bear­ing a cross, sym­bol­ical of the Saviour as the “Lamb of God.” The de­vice is com­mon in ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal art, but the name is es­pe­cial­ly giv­en in the Church of Rome to a small cake made of the wax of the East­er can­dles and im­pressed with this fig­ure. Since the 9th cen­tu­ry it has been cus­tom­ary for the popes to bless these cakes, and dis­tribute them on the Sun­day af­ter East­er among the faith­ful, by whom they are high­ly prized as hav­ing the pow­er to avert evil. In mod­ern times the dis­tri­bu­tion has been lim­it­ed to per­sons of dis­tinc­tion, and is made by the pope on his ac­ces­sion and ev­ery sev­en years there­after.

Ag­nus Dei is al­so the pop­ular name for the an­them be­gin­ning with these words, which is said to have been in­tro­duced in­to the missal by Pope Sergius I. (687-701). Based up­on John i. 29, the Latin form is Ag­nus Dei, qui tol­lis pec­ca­ta mun­di, mis­erere no­bis. In the cel­ebra­tion of the mass it is re­peat­ed three times be­fore the com­mu­nion, and it is al­so ap­pend­ed to many of the lita­nies. By the judg­ment in the case of “Read and oth­ers v. The Bish­op of Lin­coln” it was de­cid­ed in 1890 that the singing of the Ag­nus Dei in En­glish by the choir dur­ing the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the Holy Com­mu­nion, pro­vid­ed that the re­cep­tion of the el­ements be not de­layed till its con­clu­sion, is not il­le­gal in the Church of Eng­land.

For the var­ious cer­emonies in the bless­ing of the Ag­nus Dei see A. Va­cant, Dict. de the­olo­gie (cols. 605-613).

AGO­BARD (c. 779-840), Car­olin­gian prelate and re­former, be­came coad­ju­tor to Lei­drad, arch­bish­op of Lyons, in 813, and on the death of the lat­ter suc­ceed­ed him in the see (816). We know noth­ing of his ear­ly life nor of his de­scent. He pur­sued the same vig­or­ous pol­icy as his pre­de­ces­sor, who had been one of Charle­magne’s most ac­tive agents in the ref­or­ma­tion of the Church. He was strong­ly op­posed to the schemes of the em­press Ju­dith for a re­di­vi­sion of the em­pire in favour of her son Charles the Bald, Which he re­gard­ed as the cause of all the sub­se­quent evils, and sup­port­ed Lothair and Pip­pin against their fa­ther the em­per­or Louis I. De­posed in 835 by the coun­cil of Thionville, he made his peace with the em­per­or and was re­in­stat­ed in 837. Ago­bard oc­cu­pies an im­por­tant place in the Car­olin­gian re­nais­sance. He wrote ex­ten­sive­ly not on­ly the­olog­ical works but al­so po­lit­ical pam­phlets and dis­ser­ta­tions di­rect­ed against pop­ular su­per­sti­tions. These last works are unique in the lit­er­ature of the time. He de­nounced the tri­al by or­deal of fire and wa­ter, the be­lief in witchcraft, and the as­crip­tion of tem­pests to mag­ic, main­tained the Car­olin­gian op­po­si­tion to im­age-​wor­ship, but car­ried his log­ic far­ther and op­posed the ado­ra­tion of the saints. The ba­sis for this cru­sade was the­olog­ical, not sci­en­tif­ic; but it re­veals a clear in­tel­lect and in­de­pen­dent judg­ment In his pure­ly the­olog­ical works Ago­bard was strict­ly or­tho­dox, ex­cept that he de­nied the ver­bal in­spi­ra­tion of the Scrip­tures. Ago­bard was rev­er­enced as a saint in Lyons, and al­though his can­on­iza­tion is dis­put­ed his life is giv­en by the Bol­lan­dists, Ac­ta Sanc­to­rum, Jun. ii. 748.

BIB­LI­OG­RA­PHY.–Ago­bard’s works were lost un­til 1605, when a manuscript was dis­cov­ered in Lyons and pub­lished by Pa­pir­ius Mas­son, again by Baluze in 1666. For lat­er edi­tions see Pot­thast, Bib­lio­the­ca His­tor­ica Medii Ae­vi. The life of Ago­bard in Ebert’s Geschichte der Lit­ter­atur des Mit­te­lal­ters (1880), Band ii., is still one the best to con­sult. For fur­ther in­di­ca­tions see A. Molin­ier, Sources de l’his­toire de France, i. p. 235.

AG­ONA­LIA, in an­cient Rome, fes­ti­vals cel­ebrat­ed on the 9th of Jan­uary, 17th of March, 21st of May, and 11th of De­cem­ber in each year in hon­our of var­ious di­vini­ties (Ovid, Fasti, i. 319-332). The word is de­rived ei­ther from ag­onia, “a vic­tim,” or from ag­oni­um, “a fes­ti­val.”

AG­ONIC LINES (from Gr. a-, pri­va­tive, and go­nia, an an­gle), the term giv­en to the imag­inary lines on the earth’s sur­face con­nect­ing points at which the mag­net­ic nee­dle points to the ge­ograph­ical north and south. (See MAG­NETISM, TER­RES­TRI­AL.)

AGONO­THETES, in an­cient Greece, the pres­ident or su­per­in­ten­dent of the sa­cred games. At first the per­son who in­sti­tut­ed the games and de­frayed the ex­pens­es was the Agono­thetes; but in the great pub­lic games, such as the Olympic and Pythi­an, these pres­idents were the rep­re­sen­ta­tives of dif­fer­ent states, or were cho­sen from the peo­ple in whose coun­try the games were cel­ebrat­ed; thus at the Pana­thenaic fes­ti­val at Athens ten athlo­thetae were elect­ed for four years to su­per­in­tend the var­ious con­tests. They were var­ious­ly called aisum­ne­tai, brabeu­tai, ag­onar­chai, agonodikai, athlo­thetai (at Athens), eab­dou­choi or eab­donomoi (from the rod or scep­tre em­blem­at­ic of their au­thor­ity), but their func­tions were gen­er­al­ly the same.

AGO­RA, orig­inal­ly, in prim­itive times, the as­sem­bly of the Greek peo­ple, con­voked by the king or one of his no­bles. The right of speech and vote was re­strict­ed to the no­bles, the peo­ple be­ing per­mit­ted to ex­press their opin­ion on­ly by signs of ap­plause or dis­ap­proval. The word then came to be used for the place where as­sem­blies were held, and thus from its con­ve­nience as a meet­ing-​place the ago­ra be­came in most of the cities of Greece the gen­er­al re­sort for pub­lic and es­pe­cial­ly com­mer­cial in­ter­course, cor­re­spond­ing in gen­er­al with the Ro­man fo­rum. At Athens, with the in­crease of com­merce and po­lit­ical in­ter­est, it was found ad­vis­able to call pub­lic meet­ings at the Pnyx or the tem­ple of Diony­sus; but the im­por­tant as­sem­blies, such as meet­ings for os­tracism, were held in the ago­ra. In the best days of Greece the ago­ra was the place where near­ly all pub­lic traf­fic was con­duct­ed. It was most fre­quent­ed in the forenoon, and then on­ly by men. Slaves did the greater part of the pur­chas­ing, though even the no­blest cit­izens of Athens did not scru­ple to buy and sell there. Cit­izens were al­lowed a free mar­ket; for­eign­ers and met­ics had to pay a toll. Pub­lic fes­ti­vals al­so were cel­ebrat­ed in the open area of the ago­ra. At Athens the ago­ra of clas­si­cal times was adorned with trees plant­ed by Ci­mon; around it nu­mer­ous pub­lic build­ings were erect­ed, such as the coun­cil cham­ber and the law courts (for its to­pog­ra­phy, see ATHENS.) Pau­sa­nias (es­pe­cial­ly vi. 24) is the great ar­chi­tec­tural au­thor­ity on the ago­rae of var­ious Greek cities, and de­tails are al­so giv­en by Vit­ru­vius (v. 1).

AGO­RACRI­TUS, a Par­ian and Athe­ni­an sculp­tor of the age of Phidias, and said to have been his favourite pupil. His most not­ed work was the stat­ue at Rham­nus of Neme­sis, by some at­tribut­ed to Phidias him­self. Of this stat­ue part of the head is in the British Mu­se­um; some frag­ments of the re­liefs which adorned the pedestal are in the mu­se­um at Athens.

AGO­RA­NO­MI, mag­is­trates in the re­publics of Greece, whose po­si­tion and du­ties were in many re­spects sim­ilar to those of the aediles of Rome. In Athens there were ten, cho­sen an­nu­al­ly by lot, five of whom took charge of the city and five of the Peiraeus. They main­tained or­der in the mar­kets, set­tled dis­putes, ex­am­ined the qual­ity of the ar­ti­cles ex­posed for sale, test­ed weights and mea­sures, col­lect­ed the har­bour dues and en­forced the ship­ping reg­ula­tions.

AGOR­DAT, a town of Er­itrea, N.E. Africa, on the route be­tween Mas­sawa and Kas­sala. At Agor­dat on the 21st of De­cem­ber 1893 the Ital­ian troops un­der Colonel Ari­mon­di in­flict­ed a se­vere de­feat on the fol­low­ers of the khal­ifa. Agor­dat is pro­tect­ed by a strong fort. (See ER­ITREA and SU­DAN, His­to­ry.)

AGOS­TI­NI, LEONAR­DO, Ital­ian an­ti­quary of the 17th cen­tu­ry, was born at Siena. Af­ter be­ing em­ployed for some time to col­lect works of art for the Bar­beri­ni palace, he was ap­point­ed by Pope Alexan­der VII. su­per­in­ten­dent of an­tiq­ui­ties in the Ro­man states. He is­sued a new edi­tion of Paru­ta’s Si­cil­ian Medals, with en­grav­ings of 400 ad­di­tion­al spec­imens; and in con­junc­tion with Gio­van­ni Bel­lori (1615-1696) he al­so pub­lished a work on an­tique sculp­tured gems, which was trans­lat­ed in­to Latin by Jakob Gronovius (Am­ster­dam, 1685).

AGOSTI­NO, or AGOS­TI­NI [AU­GUSTI­NUS], PAO­LO (1593-1629), Ital­ian mu­si­cian, was born at Valer­ano, and stud­ied un­der G. B. Nani­ni, as we learn from the ded­ica­tion in the third and fourth books of his mass­es, sub­se­quent­ly be­com­ing the son-​in-​law of his mas­ter. He suc­ceed­ed Ugoli­ni as con­duc­tor of the pope’s or­ches­tra in St. Pe­ter’s. His mu­si­cal com­po­si­tions are nu­mer­ous and of great mer­it, an Ag­nus Dei for eight voic­es be­ing spe­cial­ly ad­mired.

AGOSTI­NO and AG­NO­LO (or AN­GE­LO) DA SIENA, Ital­ian ar­chi­tects and sculp­tors in the first half of the 14th cen­tu­ry. Del­la Valle and oth­er com­men­ta­tors de­ny that they were broth­ers. They cer­tain­ly stud­ied to­geth­er un­der Gio­van­ni Pisano, and in 1317 were joint­ly ap­point­ed ar­chi­tects of their na­tive town, for which they de­signed the Por­to Ro­mana, the church and con­vent of St Fran­cis, and oth­er build­ings. On the rec­om­men­da­tion of the cel­ebrat­ed Giot­to, who styled them the best sculp­tors of the time, they ex­ecut­ed in 1330 the tomb of Bish­op Gui­do Tar­lati in the cathe­dral of Arez­zo, which Giot­to had de­signed. It was es­teemed one of the finest artis­tic works of the 14th cen­tu­ry, but un­for­tu­nate­ly was de­stroyed by the French un­der the duke of An­jou.

AGOULT, MARIE CATHER­INE SO­PHIE DE FLAV­IGNY, COMTESSE D’ (1805-1876), French au­thor, whose nom de plume was “Daniel Stern,” was born at Frank­fort-​on-​Main on the 31st of De­cem­ber 1805. Her fa­ther was a French of­fi­cer who had served in the army of the em­igrant princes, and her moth­er was the daugh­ter of a Frank­fort banker. She was mar­ried in 1827 to the comte Charles d’Agoult. In Paris she gath­ered round her a bril­liant so­ci­ety which in­clud­ed Al­fred de Vi­gny, Sainte-​Beuve, In­gres, Chopin, Meyer­beer, Heine and oth­ers. She was sep­arat­ed from her hus­band, and be­came the mis­tress of Franz Liszt. Dur­ing her fre­quent trav­els in Switzer­land, France and Italy she made the ac­quain­tance of George Sand, and fig­ures in the Let­tres d’un voyageur as’`Ara­bel­la.” By Liszt she had three chil­dren–a son who died young; Blan­dine, who mar­ried M. Emile Ol­livi­er; and Cosi­ma, who mar­ried first Hans von Bu­low and lat­er Richard Wag­ner. The sto­ry of her breach with Liszt is told un­der a very slight dis­guise in her nov­el Nel­ida (1845). On her re­turn to Paris in 1841 she be­gan to write art crit­icisms for the Presse, and in 1844 she con­tribut­ed to the Re­vue des deux Mon­des ar­ti­cles on Bet­ti­na von Arn­im and on Hein­rich Heine, but her views were not ac­cept­able to the ed­itor, and Daniel Stern with­drew to be­come a con­trib­utor to the Re­vue in­de­pen­dante. Mme. d’Agoult was an ar­dent apos­tle of the ideas of’ 48, and from this date her sa­lon, which had been lit­er­ary and artis­tic, took on a more po­lit­ical tone; rev­olu­tion­ists of var­ious na­tion­al­ities were wel­comed by her, and she had an es­pe­cial friend­ship and sym­pa­thy for Daniele Manin. In 1857 she pro­duced a na­tion­al dra­ma, Jeanne Darc, which was trans­lat­ed in­to Ital­ian and pre­sent­ed with bril­liant suc­cess at Turin. The most im­por­tant sec­tion of Daniel Stern’s work is her po­lit­ical and his­tor­ical es­says: Let­tres re­pub­li­caines (1848), Es­quiss­es morales et poli­tiques (1849), His­toire de la Rev­olu­tion de 1848 (3 vols., 1850-1853), His­toire des com­mence­ments de la Re­publique aux Pays-​Bas (1872). Mme. d’Agoult died in Paris on the 5th of March 1876. Her daugh­ter Claire Chris­tine (b. 1830), who mar­ried Guy de Char­nace, is known as a writ­er.

See Mme. d’Agoult, Mes Sou­venirs (1806-1833), 1877; A. Cuvil­li­er Fleury, Por­traits rev­olu­tion­naires, vol. i. (1889); J. Mazz­ini, Let­tres de Joseph Mazz­ini a Daniel Stern (1872): A. Pom­mi­er, Madame la comtesse d’Agoult (Daniel Stern), 1876; A. Ungheri­ni, “Daniel Stern” in the Re­vista re­pub­bli­cana (1880, No. 9); S. Rocheblave, Une Ami­tie ro­manesque, George Sand et Madame d’Agoult (1895).

AGOUTI, or AGUTI, the West In­di­an name of Dasyproc­ta aguti, a ter­res­tri­al ro­dent of the size of a rab­bit, com­mon to Trinidad and Guiana, and classed in the fam­ily Cavi­idae. Un­der the same term may be in­clud­ed the oth­er species of Dasyproc­ta, of which there are about half a score in trop­ical Amer­ica. Agoutis are slen­der-​limbed ro­dents, with five front and three hind toes (the first front toe very minute), and very short tails. The hair, es­pe­cial­ly on the hind-​quar­ters, is coarse and some­what rough; the colour be­ing gen­er­al­ly ru­fous brown. The mo­lar teeth have cylin­dri­cal crowns, with sev­er­al is­lands and a sin­gle lat­er­al fold of enam­el when worn. In habits agoutis are noc­tur­nal, dwelling in forests, where they con­ceal them­selves dur­ing the day in hol­low tree-​trunks, or in bur­rows among roots. Ac­tive and grace­ful in their move­ments, their pace is ei­ther a kind of trot or a se­ries of springs fol­low­ing one an­oth­er so rapid­ly as to look like a gal­lop. They take read­ily to wa­ter, in which they swim well. Their food com­pris­es leaves, roots, nuts and oth­er fruits. They do much harm to plan­ta­tions of sug­ar-​cane and ba­nanas. In cap­tiv­ity the fe­males pro­duce on­ly one or two young at a birth.

AGRA, an an­cient city of In­dia, which gives its name to a dis­trict and di­vi­sion in the Unit­ed Provinces. It is fa­mous for con­tain­ing the most per­fect spec­imens of Mogul ar­chi­tec­ture. Agra, like Del­hi, owes much of its im­por­tance in both his­tor­ical and mod­ern times to the Com­mer­cial and strate­gi­cal ad­van­tages of its po­si­tion. The riv­er Jum­na, which wash­es the walls of its fort, was the nat­ural high­way for the traf­fic of the rich delta of Ben­gal to the heart of In­dia, and it formed, more­over, from very an­cient times, the fron­tier de­fence of the Aryan stock set­tled in the plain be­tween the Ganges and the Jum­na against their west­ern neigh­bours, hered­itary free­boot­ers who oc­cu­pied the high­lands of Cen­tral In­dia. No place was bet­ter fit­ted for both an em­po­ri­um and a fron­tier fortress. The riv­er formed an un­ford­able bar­ri­er and al­so a use­ful means of com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Je­hangir tells us in his au­to­bi­og­ra­phy that be­fore his fa­ther Ak­bar built the present fort, the town was de­fend­ed by a citadel of great an­tiq­ui­ty. For three hun­dred years the Afghans and oth­er tribes came down from the north and found­ed king­doms; and their pow­er ra­di­at­ed from Del­hi and Agra. It was Sikan­dar, of the house of Lo­di (A.D. 1500), the last of the Afghan dy­nas­ties, who re­al­ized the strate­gic im­por­tance of Agra as a point for keep­ing in check his re­bel­lious vas­sals to the south. He re­moved his court there, and Agra from be­ing “a mere vil­lage of old stand­ing,” says a Per­sian chron­icler, be­came the cap­ital of a king­dom. In 1526 the city was cap­tured by the em­per­or Baber, the fa­mous Koh-​i-​noor di­amond be­ing part of the loot; and it was here that Baber an­nounced that his in­va­sion was to be a per­ma­nent con­quest, and not a mere tem­po­rary in­road. It was Baber’s grand­son Ak­bar that built the present fort, whose strong and lofty walls of red sand­stone are a mile and a,half in cir­cum­fer­ence. The build­ing was com­plet­ed in 1665, when Charles II. was on the throne of Eng­land and the plague was dev­as­tat­ing Lon­don. An­oth­er build­ing of much the same date is the red stone palace gen­er­al­ly at­tribut­ed to Ak­bar, but prob­ably of an ear­li­er time, which is the finest ex­am­ple of pure Hin­du ar­chi­tec­ture; while the Moti Masjid, or Pearl Mosque, is an equal­ly per­fect ex­am­ple of the Ma­hommedan style.

But the glo­ry of Agra, the most splen­did­ly po­et­ic build­ing in the world, is the Taj Ma­hal, the mau­soleum built (A.D. 1632) by

Taj Ma­hal.

the em­per­or Shah Ja­han for the re­mains of his favourite wife, Mum­taz Man­al, in which he him­self al­so al­so lies buried. The build­ing is of white mar­ble through­out, crowned with a great white dome in the cen­tre, and with a small­er dome at each of its four cor­ners. From the mar­ble ter­race which sur­rounds it rise four tall minarets of the same ma­te­ri­al, one at each cor­ner. The Taj has been mod­elled and paint­ed more fre­quent­ly than any oth­er build­ing in the world, and the word pic­tures of it are num­ber­less. But it can on­ly be de­scribed as a dream in mar­ble. It am­ply jus­ti­fies the say­ing that the Moguls de­signed like Ti­tans and fin­ished like jew­ellers. In re­gard to colour and de­sign the Taj ranks first in the world for pure­ly dec­ora­tive work­man­ship; while the per­fect sym­me­try of its ex­te­ri­or once seen can nev­er be for­got­ten, nor the aeri­al grace of its domes, ris­ing like mar­ble bub­bles in­to the azure sky. In his His­to­ry of Ar­chi­tec­ture, Fer­gus­son says of it:–

“This build­ing is an ear­ly ex­am­ple of that sys­tem of in­lay­ing with pre­cious stones which be­came the great char­ac­ter­is­tic of the style of the Moghals af­tr­er the death of Ak­bar. All the span­drils of the Taj, all the an­gles and more im­por­tant ar­chi­tec­tural de­tails, are height­ened by be­ing in­laid with pre­cious stones such as agates, blood­stones, jaspers and the like. These are com­bined in wreaths, scrolls and frets, as exquisite in de­sign as they are beau­ti­ful in colour, and re­lieved by the pure white mar­ble in which they are in­laid, they form the most beau­ti­ful and pre­cious style of or­na­ment ev­er adopt­ed in ar­chi­tec­ture. 1t is lav­ish­ly be­stowed on the tombs them­selves and the screens which sur­round them, but more spar­ing­ly in­tro­duced on the mosque that forms one wing of the Taj, and on the foun­tains and sur­round­ing build­ings. The judg­ment, in­deed, with which this style of or­na­ment is ap­por­tioned to the var­ious parts, is al­most as re­mark­able as the or­na­ment it­self, and con­veys a high idea of the taste and skill of the ar­chi­tects of this age.”

Of the Taj as a whole Lord Roberts says in his Forty-​one Years in In­dia:–

“Nei­ther words nor pen­cil could give to the most imag­ina­tive read­er the slight­est idea of the all-​sat­is­fy­ing beau­ty and pu­ri­ty of this glo­ri­ous con­cep­tion. To those who have not al­ready seen it I would say, `Go to In­dia. The Taj alone is well worth the jour­ney.”’

The Taj was de­signed by Us­tad Isa, var­ious­ly de­scribed as a Byzan­tine Turk and a na­tive of Shi­raz in Per­sia. The pietra du­ra work be­longs to the Per­sian school and the com­mon be­lief that it was de­signed by Austin de Bor­deaux, a French ar­chi­tect in the ser­vice of Shah Ja­han, is prob­ably in­cor­rect.

Agra was for­mer­ly the cap­ital of the North-​West Provinces, but af­ter the Mutiny the seat of gov­ern­ment was re­moved to Al­la­habad. Sit­uat­ed 841 m. from Cal­cut­ta it is now an im­por­tant rail­way cen­tre, whence two main lines di­verge south­wards to­wards Bom­bay. In 1901 the pop­ula­tion was 188,022, show­ing an in­crease of 12% dur­ing the decade. The city con­tains cot­ton mills, fac­to­ries for gin­ning and press­ing cot­ton, a tan­nery and boot fac­to­ry and flour mill. There are al­so two mis­sion­ary col­leges.

The DIS­TRICT OF AGRA has an area of 1856 sq. m. Its gen­er­al ap­pear­ance is that com­mon to the Doab, a lev­el plain in­ter­sect­ed by wa­ter­cours­es and ravines. Its gen­er­al el­eva­tion is es­ti­mat­ed at from 650 to 700 ft. above the lev­el of the sea. The dis­trict is in­ter­sect­ed by the Jum­na, and is al­so wa­tered by the Agra canal. The prin­ci­pal crops are mil­lets, puls­es, bar­ley, wheat, cot­ton and a lit­tle in­di­go. The pop­ula­tion in 1901 was 1,060,528, show­ing an in­crease of 6% dur­ing the decade.

The DI­VI­SION OF AGRA has an area of 10,154 sq. m. In 1901 the pop­ula­tion was 5,249,542, show­ing an in­crease of 10% dur­ing the decade, at­tribut­ed to the ex­ten­sion of ir­ri­ga­tion from canals. It com­pris­es the six dis­tricts of Mut­tra, Agra, Farukhabad, Main­puri, Etawah and Etah.

For an ac­count of the ar­chi­tec­ture of Agra see Fer­gus­son’s His­to­ry of Ar­chi­tec­ture; Cities of In­dia (1903) by G. W. For­est; En­chant­ed In­dia (1899), by Prince Bo­ji­dar Kara­georgevitch; and E. B. Havelln, Hand­book to Agra and the Taj (1904).

AGRA CANAL, an im­por­tant In­di­an ir­ri­ga­tion work, avail­able al­so for nav­iga­tion, in Del­hi, Gur­gaon, Mut­tra and Agra dis­tricts, and Bharat­pur state. The canal re­ceives its wa­ter from the Jum­na riv­er at Okia, about 10 m. be­low Del­hi. The weir across the Jum­na was the first at­tempt­ed in Up­per In­dia up­on a foun­da­tion of fine sand; it is about 800 yds. long, and ris­es 7 ft. above the sum­mer lev­el of the riv­er. From Ok­la the canal fol­lows the high land be­tween the Khari-​na­di and the Jum­na, and fi­nal­ly joins the Ban­gan­ga riv­er about 20 m. be­low Agra. Nav­iga­ble branch­es con­nect the canal with Mut­tra and Agra. It was opened in 1874.

AGRAM (Hun­gar­ian Za­grab, Croa­tian Za­greb), the cap­ital of Croa­tia-​Slavo­nia, and a roy­al free town of Hun­gary; pleas­ant­ly sit­uat­ed be­tween the north bank of the Save and the moun­tains which cul­mi­nate in Sljeme (3396 ft.); 187 m. by rail S. of Vi­en­na. Pop. (1890) 38,742; (1900) 57,930, or with gar­ri­son 61,002. Agram is the seat of the ban, or viceroy, of Croa­tia-​Slavo­nia, of the Ba­nal and Septemvi­ral courts, the high­est in the land, and of a cham­ber of com­merce. It is al­so the meet­ing-​place of the par­lia­ment; but lo­cal af­fairs are con­duct­ed by a mu­nic­ipal coun­cil. The city is di­vid­ed in­to three dis­tricts. The Kapi­tel-​Stadt, some­times called the Bish­op’s Town, with the palace of the Ro­man Catholic arch­bish­op, and his late Goth­ic cathe­dral, dat­ing from the 15th cen­tu­ry, lies east­ward of the Med­vescak, a brook which flows in­to the Save. The Up­per Town, on high ground west of the Med­vescak, con­tains the palace of the ban and the nat­ural his­to­ry mu­se­um. On the south, the Low­er Town is sep­arat­ed from the oth­er dis­tricts by the In­ca, a long street tra­versed by a ca­ble tramway. In it are the busi­ness and in­dus­tri­al quar­ters; the palace of jus­tice; the acade­my of sci­ence, with pic­ture-​gal­leries, a li­brary and a col­lec­tion of an­tiq­ui­ties; the the­atre; the Franz Josef Uni­ver­si­ty, found­ed in 1874 to teach the­ol­ogy, law and phi­los­ophy; the syn­agogue; and the on­ly Protes­tant church ex­ist­ing in the coun­try at the be­gin­ning of the 20th cen­tu­ry. Ro­man Catholic church­es and schools are nu­mer­ous. Be­sides the large Max­imir park and botan­ical gar­dens, many of the squares are plant­ed with trees and adorned with stat­ues; while the whole city is sur­round­ed by vine­yards and coun­try hous­es. To­bac­co, leather, linen, car­pets and war-​ma­te­ri­al are man­ufac­tured in Agram, which al­so con­tains the works of the Hun­gar­ian state rail­ways, and has a brisk trade in grain, wine, potash, hon­ey, silk and porce­lain.

In 1094 Agram was found­ed by Ladis­laus I. of Hun­gary, as the seat of a bish­op; and on the ex­pul­sion of its Mon­gol colony, in 1242, it was raised to the rank of a roy­al free city. For cen­turies a bit­ter feud raged be­tween the Kapi­tel-​Stadt and the Up­per Town, un­til these ri­vals were forced to join hands against the Turks. Agram, al­ready the po­lit­ical cen­tre of Croa­tia-​Slavo­nia, was se­lect­ed as the cap­ital in 1867. It suf­fered severe­ly from earth­quake in 1880 and 1901.

AGRAPHA (i.e. “un­writ­ten”), the name giv­en to cer­tain ut­ter­ances as­cribed, with some de­gree of cer­tain­ty, to Je­sus, which have been pre­served in doc­uments oth­er than the Gospels, e.g. Acts xx. 35; 1 Tim. v. 18; 1 Cor. vii. 10-12, and the Lo­gia (q.v.) dis­cov­ered in 1897 and 1903 at Oxyrhyn­cus. Two in­ter­est­ing ex­am­ples of such say­ings may be quot­ed: (1) “That which is weak shall be saved by that which is strong”; (2) “Je­sus, on whom be peace, has said: `The world is mere­ly a bridge; ye are to pass over it, and not to build your dwellings up­on it.”’ The first of these is from the Apos­tolic Canons (c. A.D. 300), the sec­ond was found by the mis­sion­ary Alexan­der Duff in­scribed in Ara­bic on the gate­way of the mosque at Fateh­pur Sikri.

The ear­li­est mod­ern col­lec­tion of such say­ings was by Cotelerius, Ec­cle­si­ae Grae­cae Mon­umen­ta (1677-1688), fol­lowed by J. E. Grabe, Spicelegium (1698 and 1700), and J. B. Fabri­cius, Codex Apoc­ryph. N. T. (2nd ed., 1719). See al­so A. Resch, Agrapha (Leipzig, 1889); J. H. Ropes, Die Spruche Je­su (Leipzig, 1896); and the ar­ti­cle “Say­ings” in J. Hast­ings’ Dic­tio­nary of Christ and the Gospels.

AGRAR­IAN LAWS (Lat. ager, land). Un­der this head­ing we deal with the dis­pos­al of the pub­lic land (ager pub­li­cus) of an­cient Rome. It was a prin­ci­ple of the Re­pub­li­can con­sti­tu­tion that no gra­tu­itous dis­po­si­tion of state prop­er­ty should be made with­out the con­sent of the peo­ple. Hence many of the or­di­nances af­fect­ing the pub­lic land were laws (leg­es) in the strictest sense of that word. It is, how­ev­er, both jus­ti­fi­able and con­ve­nient to con­sid­er in this ar­ti­cle all the reg­ula­tions that were made for the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the pub­lic land by the ex­ec­utive au­thor­ities, as well as by the peo­ple dur­ing the Re­pub­lic, and by the com­mands of the em­per­or, which had the force of law dur­ing the Prin­ci­pate.

The ex­is­tence of pub­lic land, first in Italy, and then in the Mediter­ranean world, was the out­come of two ideas which are very fa­mil­iar to stu­dents of an­tiq­ui­ty. This land was the prize of con­quest and was one of the means of de­fray­ing the cur­rent ex­pens­es of state-​ad­min­is­tra­tion. For the lat­ter pur­pose land is of­ten leased or al­lowed to be oc­cu­pied on the con­di­tion of the pay­ment of dues. But it may be made to ful­fil an­oth­er pur­pose as well–this pur­pose be­ing the sat­is­fac­tion of the in­di­vid­ual needs of poor­er cit­izens. To meet this ob­ject the land is usu­al­ly as­signed, and on as­sign­ment gen­er­al­ly ceas­es to be the prop­er­ty of the state. But it of­ten hap­pens that the state is not whol­ly dis­in­ter­est­ed in un­der­tak­ing such acts of as­sign­ment. It gains se­cu­ri­ty and ter­ri­to­ri­al con­trol by plant­ing gar­risons in con­quered coun­try, and it re­lieves it­self of the ne­ces­si­ty of pro­vid­ing for its poor­er class­es whether by state-​aid or by a haz­ardous tam­per­ing with the rights of pri­vate prop­er­ty. In this use to which pub­lic land could be turned we see at once the con­nex­ion be­tween agrar­ian leg­is­la­tion and col­oniza­tion–a con­nex­ion which was so close that when a Ro­man spoke of an agrar­ian law he seems gen­er­al­ly to have un­der­stood by it a law es­tab­lish­ing a colony–and al­so the two as­pects of col­oniza­tion, the mil­itary and the so­cial. These two ob­jects were in­dis­sol­ubly con­nect­ed through­out the whole of the ear­li­er pe­ri­od of Ro­man agrar­ian assig­na­tion. They on­ly be­came sep­arat­ed in the pe­ri­od sub­se­quent to the Grac­chi in so far as so­cial mo­tives still con­tin­ued to be op­er­ative when mil­itary pre­cau­tions had ceased to be nec­es­sary. It is prob­able that one of the chief mo­tives which prompt­ed in­fant Rome to war with her neigh­bours was the land-​hunger of her cit­izens. This hunger she sat­is­fied af­ter con­quest by an­nex­ing a por­tion of the en­emy’s ter­ri­to­ry. The amount thus con­fis­cat­ed var­ied from time to time. It was usu­al­ly a third, but some­times a half or even two-​thirds, and af­ter the fall of Ca­pua in the Sec­ond Punic War the whole ter­ri­to­ry of the state was an­nexed. It is pos­si­ble that by the close of the 2nd cen­tu­ry B.C. one-​half of the land of Italy be­longed to Rome whether in pri­vate own­er­ship or as the prop­er­ty of the state. An­nex­ation was car­ried on in the provinces on a rel­ative­ly small­er scale: but Rome re­tained as do­main-​land much of the ter­ri­to­ry of com­mu­ni­ties which had been de­stroyed, such as Carthage and Corinth, and the es­tates of for­mer kings, such as the lands of the At­tal­ids in the Cher­son­ese. Oth­er do­mains in Sici­ly and Greece, such as the ter­ri­to­ry of Leon­ti­ni in the for­mer, or Oro­pus in the lat­ter case, are al­so found. This pe­cu­liar prop­er­ty of the Ro­man state in the provinces must be care­ful­ly dis­tin­guished from the gen­er­al over­lord­ship which Rome was sup­posed to hold over all provin­cial soil, ex­pressed in the state­ment that provin­cials had on­ly pos­ses­sion or usufruct of their land (Gaius ii. 7; Gro­mati­ci, p. 36, Lach­mann). This over­lord­ship was prob­ably mere­ly a le­gal fic­tion by which the ju­ris­tic mind as­signed a rea­son for the fact that the provin­cials paid a land tax from which Ital­ians were ex­empt.

Such por­tions of the ter­ri­to­ries of con­quered cities as were not claimed by Rome were as a mat­ter of course left in the undis­turbed pos­ses­sion of these cities. If the city was a fed­er­ate state (civ­itas foed­er­ata), his pos­ses­sion was guar­an­teed by a treaty; if it was a free city, the guar­an­tee was made by char­ter; if it was nei­ther fed­er­ate nor free, the aban­don­ment of the ter­ri­to­ry by Rome must have been tak­en as a suf­fi­cient guar­an­tee of the city’s right to pos­sess, al­though state­ments rel­ative to the sur­ren­der may have been con­tained in the char­ter of the province (lex provin­ci­ae) to which the city be­longed. But, whether the states were fed­er­ate, free or stipen­di­ary, there was on­ly one case in which it was im­por­tant to spec­ify pre­cise­ly that land had been re­stored (red­di­tus) to its for­mer oc­cu­pants. This was the case where Rome had marked out a ter­ri­to­ry for as­sign­ment to her own cit­izens, but where in or near the lim­its of the as­sign­ment some of the land had been left in the hands or its for­mer pro­pri­etors. Such land was not­ed in the state reg­is­ters as red­di­tus vet­eri pos­ses­sori. Some­times it was found that such an an­cient pos­ses­sor owned pieces of land sep­arat­ed from one an­oth­er. In such cas­es an ex­change might be ef­fect­ed be­tween him and some oth­er pos­ses­sor, so that his pos­ses­sions might be con­tin­uous. The fact of such an ex­change was sym­bol­ized in the reg­is­ters by the en­try of land red­di­tus et com­mu­ta­tus pro suo.

When the claims of ear­li­er own­ers had been sat­is­fied, the state pro­ceed­ed to deal with such land as it re­tained. It dealt with it in two ways. It ei­ther alien­at­ed it, whether in ex­change for a price or gra­tu­itous­ly; or it kept it as a source of rev­enue, whether on a sys­tem of lease or on some sys­tem of re­mu­ner­ative oc­cu­pa­tion. We may first con­sid­er the cas­es in which the state de­cid­ed to alien­ate. The land might be sold for the ben­efit of the trea­sury. Typ­ical in­stances of this treat­ment are fur­nished by the sale of some Cam­pa­ni­an land dur­ing the Sec­ond Punic War (Livy xxvi­ii. 46, xxxii. 7). The cen­sors may have di­rect­ed the sale, but it was ex­ecut­ed by the quaestors as the reg­ular of­fi­cials of the trea­sury. Hence such land was de­scribed as ager quaesto­rius. The land was sold in def­inite­ly marked out plots, and we must sup­pose that, as a rule, when this sale had been ef­fect­ed, the lots fell un­der the ab­so­lute own­er­ship of their pur­chasers. Yet there was some pe­ri­od of Ro­man his­to­ry when this own­er­ship was (at least in cer­tain cas­es) con­di­tioned. The Ro­man writ­ers on agri­cul­ture speak of con­di­tions and their ne­glect (Gro­mati­ci, p. 115). The con­di­tions were prob­ably those of mil­itary ser­vice or fron­tier de­fence. The epoch of his­to­ry at which this con­di­tioned own­er­ship was rec­og­nized can­not be de­ter­mined. It is a form of tenure that would be equal­ly ap­pro­pri­ate to the needs of the ear­li­est pe­ri­od of Ro­man his­to­ry and to those of im­pe­ri­al times.

The sec­ond mode of alien­ation was that by assig­na­tion. Lands thus as­signed were known as agri dati assig­nati. The gift on the part of the state was gra­tu­itous, and own­er­ship passed whol­ly to the as­signee. The land so giv­en was def­inite­ly sur­veyed, marked out and reg­is­tered. Such an as­sign­ment might take one of two pos­si­ble forms. It might be the means of es­tab­lish­ing a new “plan­ta­tion” (colo­nia), with some in­de­pen­dent po­lit­ical or­ga­ni­za­tion of its own, how­ev­er slight–a set­tle­ment, there­fore, which could be thought of as an en­ti­ty sep­arate from the city of Rome and from any oth­er mu­nic­ipal­ity. Or it might be the means of pro­vid­ing al­lot­ments for in­di­vid­uals who re­mained domi­ciled at Rome or con­tin­ued to be mem­bers of some al­ready ex­ist­ing mu­nic­ipal­ity. It has been fre­quent­ly held in mod­ern times that this lat­ter method of as­sign­ment is the one which our an­cient au­thor­ities de­scribe as as­sign­ment to in­di­vid­uals (vir­itim), and that the an­tithe­sis lies be­tween the “colo­nial” and the “vir­itane” method of dis­tri­bu­tion. It is true that the pas­sages which speak of the lat­ter mode of assig­na­tion need not, and per­haps can­not, be in­ter­pret­ed as pre­sent­ing the an­tithe­sis (Var­ro, de Re Rus­ti­ca, i. 2. 7, i. 10. 2; Livy iv. 48, v. 24; Fes­tus, p. 373; Gro­mati­ci, pp. 154, 160); yet it is not im­prob­able that the an­tithe­sis is la­tent in this spe­cif­ic use of the term. It seems clear that the idea of assig­na­tion to, and, there­fore, of own­er­ship by, in­di­vid­uals must orig­inal­ly have been de­vel­oped in con­trast to the idea of own­er­ship by some larg­er group (see RO­MAN LAW). When the stage of in­di­vid­ual own­er­ship was reached, all assig­na­tion was “vir­itane,” but on­ly some assig­na­tion was “colo­nial.” “Vir­itane” was, there­fore, the wider term which would cov­er, and may some­times have been used spe­cial­ly to de­note, the sys­tem of non-​colo­nial as­sign­ment. The amount grant­ed to in­di­vid­uals in as­sign­ments of both types var­ied from time to time. It was reck­oned in terms of the jugerum, which was ap­prox­imate­ly 5/8 of an En­glish acre. The ear­li­est and small­est as­sign­ment was 2 jugera–an amount so small that it seems to pre­sup­pose on the part of the re­cip­ient some share in com­mon or gen­tile prop­er­ty or some ad­di­tion­al pri­vate prop­er­ty of his own. Oth­er quo­tas were 3, 3 7/12, 7, 10 + 14 jugera. The last was the max­imum amount grant­ed be­fore the time of Ti. Grac­chus (133 B.C.), and it was held by rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the old school that 7 jugera were as much as any fru­gal Ro­man should want (Pliny, His­to­ria Nat­uralis, xvi­ii. 18). The di­vi­sion was car­ried out by com­mis­sions of 3, 5 or 10 men ap­point­ed by the peo­ple (Ci­cero, de Lege Agraria ii. 7. 17). The land which the state re­tained as ager pub­li­cus was al­ways placed in the hands of in­di­vid­uals, who oc­cu­pied it in some man­ner re­mu­ner­ative to the state. These in­di­vid­uals (pos­ses­sores) were nev­er re­gard­ed as own­ers of the land thus oc­cu­pied. It re­mained the prop­er­ty of the state, was held with­out a con­tract (pre­cario) and could be re­sumed by the state at will. But though the pos­ses­sors had no claim against the state, their own­er­ship could be de­fend­ed against all oth­er in­di­vid­ual claimants; and it seems prob­able that from an ear­ly date the prae­tor’s pos­ses­so­ry in­ter­dict was used to pro­tect all oc­cu­piers, pro­vid­ed their tenure had been ac­quired nei­ther by force (vi) nor by seizure of land in its oc­cu­piers, ab­sence (clam), nor by mere per­mis­sion of the pre­vi­ous hold­er to oc­cu­py (pre­cario al­ter ab al­tero.) More­over, Ap­pi­an says that pos­ses­sors of this type could trans­fer their land by in­her­itance, and that the land was ac­cept­ed as se­cu­ri­ty by cred­itors. This kind of oc­cu­pa­tion, there­fore, though clear­ly dis­tin­guished from own­er­ship (do­mini­um), was yet re­gard­ed as a per­fect­ly se­cure form of tenure. All oc­cu­piers of pub­lic land paid dues to the state through a state con­trac­tor (pub­li­canus.) These dues var­ied in amount, and in the method of their col­lec­tion. We learn from Ap­pi­an that the or­di­nary dues paid by oc­cu­piers of arable land in Italy were 1/10 of seed crops and 1/5 of plant pro­duce. Own­ers who turned cat­tle or sheep on pas­ture land be­long­ing to the state al­so paid fixed dues to the trea­sury. The oc­cu­piers of the Ro­man pub­lic land in Cam­pa­nia paid a large rent (Cic. de leg. Agr. i. 7. 21). Ap­pi­an’s ac­count of the pub­lic land (Bell. Civ. i. 7) would lead us to sup­pose that the amount of tax paid by the oc­cu­pi­er, and the method adopt­ed by the state for the col­lec­tion of the rev­enues, de­pend­ed up­on the na­ture of the land at the time when it first passed to a pos­ses­sor. He says that some of the pub­lic land which was in a good state of cul­ti­va­tion was let on lease; but that with re­gard to the poor or dev­as­tat­ed land procla­ma­tion was made that any­one might squat on it and till it in re­turn for the small pay­ment in kind men­tioned above. It has been ques­tioned whether the land de­scribed by Ap­pi­an and by Ci­cero as let on lease, of which the Cam­pa­ni­an land and some lands in Sici­ly are typ­ical, rep­re­sents a legal­ly dis­tinct class. It seems prob­able that the dis­tinc­tion is one of prac­tice rather than of law, and that the dif­fer­ence lay not in the re­la­tion be­tween the state and the pos­ses­sor (as would be the case if the leased land were re­al­ly let to in­di­vid­uals by the cen­sor, while the oc­cu­pied land was held by mere per­mis­sion of the state with­out any con­tract) but in the de­tails of the con­tract be­tween the cen­sor and the pub­li­canus with re­gard to the col­lec­tion of the dues. The con­di­tions of the tenure of the Ro­man pub­lic land in Africa are known to us from the Lex Agraria of 111 B.C. (Bruns, Fontes, i. 3. 11, vv. 85 foll.). Here the pub­li­canus is the mid­dle­man be­tween the state and the pos­ses­sor, and pur­chas­es from the cen­sor the right of col­lect­ing dues. The law places no re­stric­tion on bar­gain­ing be­tween the cen­sor and the pub­li­canus, but en­acts that no pos­ses­sor or pas­tor shall ev­er be re­quired by the pub­li­canus to pay more than the amount pre­scribed by the cen­sors of 115 B.C. These con­di­tions may be re­gard­ed as typ­ical for the oc­cu­pa­tion of pub­lic lands. And when Ci­cero speaks of pub­lic land as let on lease (lo­ca­tus) by the cen­sor, he no doubt refers to the farm­ing of the tax­es to a pub­li­canus for a fixed pe­ri­od, and not to the let­ting of the land. This seems clear from a pas­sage (in Verr. iii. 6. 12) where he speaks of land in Sici­ly which had been re­stored by Rome to for­mer own­ers as be­ing leased. The land it­self could not be leased by Rome if it be­longed not to Rome but to the Si­cil­ian in­hab­itants; but the col­lec­tion of the rev­enues due to Rome could be so leased to Pub­li­cani (q.v..) And the same ex­pla­na­tion would ap­ply to Ci­cero’s state­ments that the Cam­pa­ni­an land was let on lease by the cen­sors (cf. Fes­tus, s.v. ven­di­tiones.) The view that there was a dis­tinct class of the pub­lic land which was let out for a fixed term of years to ten­ants on a def­inite lease, un­like the or­di­nary pub­lic land which was al­ways held in oc­cu­pa­tion mere­ly at will (pre­cario), has been main­tained by W. A. Beck­er, and seems to be sup­port­ed, with the help of con­jec­ture, by a few pas­sages in Ci­cero and by Hy­gi­nus (Gro­mati­ci, p. 116). But the pas­sage of Hy­gi­nus is bare­ly in­tel­li­gi­ble even on this sup­po­si­tion; and Ci­cero’s re­peat­ed state­ment that the Cam­pa­ni­an land was ex­press­ly ex­empt­ed from the leg­is­la­tion of the Grac­chi (cf. Lex Agraria, Bruns, loc. cit. v. 6) shows that there was not suf­fi­cient dis­tinc­tion be­tween the Cam­pa­ni­an tenure and that of oth­er pub­lic land in Italy to make this def­inite ex­cep­tion by name su­per­flu­ous. The Sem­pro­ni­an law could ob­vi­ous­ly not touch land which the state had leased to oc­cu­piers on the ba­sis of a def­inite con­tract. More­over, we have ab­so­lute­ly no ev­idence for such a con­tract, even in Ci­cero’s speech­es against Rul­lus, when he might be ex­pect­ed to men­tion it as an ob­jec­tion to Rul­lus’s bill. That there were some dis­tinc­tive char­ac­ter­is­tics about the tenure of cer­tain lands, of which the Cam­pa­ni­an land is typ­ical, seems proved by the re­peat­ed as­so­ci­ation of these lands with cer­tain spe­cial lands in the provinces, es­pe­cial­ly at Leon­ti­ni in Sici­ly, and by some pas­sages in the Gro­mati­ci where agri vecti­gales are spo­ken of as a dis­tinct class. But what these char­ac­ter­is­tics were can­not be clear­ly de­ter­mined. It seems cer­tain that in ev­ery case the pos­ses­sor oc­cu­pied pre­cario, and that on­ly in the bar­gain be­tween the cen­sor and the mid­dle­man was there room for con­tract. Thus the state was jus­ti­fied in the claim to re­sume pub­lic land which it made in many of the Agrar­ian laws.

The ear­li­est agrar­ian mea­sures of which we have any record are the dis­tri­bu­tions of land con­quered in war to poor cit­izens, which lat­er au­thor­ities at­tribute to Nu­ma and Servius Tul­lius. Such as­sign­ments, how­ev­er, are not the re­sult of leg­isla­tive acts, but of a vol­un­tary sur­ren­der on the king’s part of his own por­tion of the spoils. It is prob­able that the agrar­ian law which re­sult­ed from the pro­pos­als of Spurius Cas­sius (con­sul 486 B.C.) was the first at­tempt made by the Ro­man peo­ple to ex­er­cise its con­trol over the oc­cu­pa­tion of state ter­ri­to­ry. Ac­cord­ing to the tra­di­tion­al ac­count, Cas­sius pro­posed that such por­tion of lands late­ly con­quered from the Her­ni­ci as fell to the Ro­man state should be di­vid­ed in equal shares be­tween the Ro­man plebs and the Latins; and fur­ther that poor cit­izens should re­ceive al­lot­ments of land pre­vi­ous­ly con­quered, and oc­cu­pied with­out any le­gal right by the Pa­tri­cians. The in­clu­sion of the Latins in the dis­tri­bu­tion was af­ter­wards dropped; but the law in its fi­nal form cer­tain­ly as­sert­ed the right of the Ple­beians to take their share in the pub­lic land. The ac­counts giv­en of it by Livy and Diony­sius are no doubt coloured by their knowl­edge of lat­er agrar­ian leg­is­la­tion, and it seems hard­ly like­ly that the pro­pos­al to re­sume and re­dis­tribute pub­lic land al­ready oc­cu­pied was made at this ear­ly stage; but it prob­ably chal­lenged the ex­clu­sive claim of Pa­tri­cians to oc­cu­py. We hear of an­oth­er agrar­ian law pro­posed by the tri­bune Lu­cius Icil­ius in 456 B.C. (Lex Icil­ia de Aventi­no pub­li­can­do) which reg­ulat­ed in some way the tenure of pub­lic land on the Aven­tine. In 376 B.C. the tri­bunes Licinius and Sex­tius in­tro­duced in­to their laws, for the pro­mo­tion of the priv­ileges of the plebs, a clause en­act­ing that no more than 500 jugera of land should be oc­cu­pied by a sin­gle cul­ti­va­tor. It seems al­most cer­tain from Livy’s ac­count that this mea­sure re­ferred on­ly to the oc­cu­pa­tion of ager pub­li­cus, though some mod­ern au­thor­ities have up­held the view that it dealt with land held on any kind of tenure, oth­ers again that it deal­ton­ly­with pri­vate prop­er­ty in land. Ac­cord­ing to Ap­pi­an, the law al­so en­act­ed that on­ly 100 cat­tle and 500 sheep might be turned by one own­er on the pub­lic pas­tures. But it failed of its ob­ject be­cause it did not pro­vide any ad­equate ma­chin­ery for the re­sump­tion by the state of land held in ex­cess of the pre­scribed amount, and was there­fore eas­ily evad­ed. The next agrar­ian law we hear of was a more spe­cial mea­sure deal­ing with lands con­quered from the Senones and Pi­cen­tines. In 232 B.C. C. Flaminius, then tri­bune of the plebs, pro­posed to re­sume these lands for the state, al­though they were al­ready oc­cu­pied by large land­hold­ers, and to dis­tribute them in al­lot­ments to poor cit­izens. The mea­sure met with much op­po­si­tion from the rich­er class­es, and did not gain the sanc­tion of the sen­ate; but C. Flaminius ig­nored con­sti­tu­tion­al us­age and brought it di­rect be­fore the coun­cil of the plebs, by which it was made law. In 133 B.C. the tri­bune Tiberius Grac­chus (q.v.) re-​en­act­ed the ear­li­er mea­sure of Licinius and Sex­tius, with the ad­di­tion­al pro­vi­sions that each own­er might oc­cu­py 250 jugera for each son, in ad­di­tion to the orig­inal 500, and that a com­mis­sion of three (iii. viri agris dan­dis adsig­nan­dis) should be ap­point­ed to car­ry out the terms of the law. He al­so en­act­ed that the land oc­cu­pied in ex­cess of the pre­scribed amount, and on that ac­count re­sumed for the state by the land com­mis­sion, should be dis­tribut­ed in in­alien­able lots to poor cit­izens. Sub­se­quent mod­ifi­ca­tions of those pro­vi­sions which dealt with the pow­ers of the land com­mis­sion led to a re-​en­act­ment of the whole by C. Grac­chus, the broth­er of Tiberius, tri­bune in 123 B.C. But with­in 15 years from the tri­bunate of C. Grac­chus the whole of his law had been ren­dered null by three fur­ther en­act­ments. The first of these per­mit­ted the sale of land al­lot­ted un­der the law, which thus tend­ed to re­turn in­to the hands of its for­mer oc­cu­piers as pri­vate prop­er­ty, which the state had no longer any right to re­sume. The sec­ond abol­ished the com­mis­sion ap­point­ed to car­ry out the terms of the law, thus putting a stop to fur­ther re­sump­tion and dis­tri­bu­tion, and al­so trans­formed ex­ist­ing oc­cu­piers in­to own­ers of the land they oc­cu­pied, pay­ing on­ly a small due to the trea­sury. The third (prob­ably the sur­viv­ing Lex Agraria, Bruns, loc. cit.) abol­ished the pay­ment. This law be­longs to the year 111 B.C. The dates of the two for­mer laws are un­cer­tain, but it is prob­able that the first was passed in 121, the sec­ond in 119 or 118. From this time for­ward a change comes over land leg­is­la­tion. The or­di­nary pub­lic land in Italy, in the hands of oc­cu­piers, which had giv­en rise to all the agrar­ian leg­is­la­tion be­tween 376 and 111, had prac­ti­cal­ly ceased to ex­ist. The Cam­pa­ni­an land still re­mained, but the same rea­sons which led to its ex­emp­tion from the Grac­chan leg­is­la­tion seem to have con­tin­ued to pro­tect its hold­ers un­til 63 B.C. In the mean­time sev­er­al agrar­ian laws were passed which pro­vid­ed for the dis­tri­bu­tion of land placed in some oth­er way at the dis­pos­al of the state. In 100 B.C. Ap­puleius Sat­urn­inus (q.v.), tri­bune of the plebs, pro­posed the al­lot­ment of lands re­cent­ly tak­en from the Cim­bri in Gaul. This law was passed, but even­tu­al­ly de­clared null by the sen­ate, with the rest of Sat­urn­inus’s laws. A more dan­ger­ous prece­dent was set by Sul­la in his dic­ta­tor­ship (82-81 B.C..) He was the first to con­fis­cate the lands of his po­lit­ical foes, and of com­mu­ni­ties which had re­sist­ed him, and treat­ing them as ager pub­li­cus, as­sign them to his vet­er­ans as a prize. This ex­am­ple was fol­lowed by Oc­ta­vian (Au­gus­tus) and Antony (M. An­to­nius) af­ter their pro­scrip­tions in 43 B.C. A third method of pro­vid­ing land for dis­tri­bu­tion was that adopt­ed by Servil­ius Rul­lus (q.v.) in 63 B.C. His bill en­act­ed that land should be pur­chased in Italy with mon­ey gained by the sale of Ro­man ter­ri­to­ries abroad, and al­lot­ted to cit­izens. A com­mis­sion of ten (x. viri agris dan­dis adsig­nan­dis), an­nu­al­ly elect­ed by 9 out of the 35 tribes, was to car­ry out the terms of the law. Rul­lus al­so ven­tured to pro­pose the dis­tri­bu­tion of the Cam­pa­ni­an land, which had hith­er­to been re­spect­ed by all agrar­ian re­form­ers. It was chiefly on this ground that Ci­cero in his three speech­es on the Agrar­ian law suc­ceed­ed in ex­cit­ing such a gen­er­al feel­ing against it that it was even­tu­al­ly with­drawn. In 60 B.C. the tri­bune L. Flav­ius brought for­ward a bill for the dis­tri­bu­tion of lands to Pom­pey’s vet­er­ans. The Cam­pa­ni­an land was cer­tain­ly to be in­clud­ed in the dis­tri­bu­tion, and it is clear from Ci­cero that the bill in some way dealt vi­olent­ly with the rights of pri­vate own­ers. It al­so, how­ev­er, en­act­ed that land should be pur­chased by the state with the wealth which Pom­pey’s con­quests had brought in­to the trea­sury. The last pro­pos­al was sup­port­ed by Ci­cero, but the bill seems to have been dropped, on­ly to reap­pear in more mod­er­ate form in the fol­low­ing year. A con­sular bill, the lex Ju­lia Cam­pana, was passed by Julius Cae­sar in 59 B.C., which pro­vid­ed for the set­tle­ment of Pom­pey’s vet­er­ans on the Cam­pa­ni­an land, and oth­er lands pur­chased by the state from pri­vate own­ers in Italy with the full con­sent of the lat­ter. In its orig­inal form, the bill omit­ted all ref­er­ence to the Cam­pa­ni­an land, which seems to have been in­clud­ed by Cae­sar in the dis­tri­bu­tion on­ly when the con­tin­ued and un­rea­son­ing op­po­si­tion of the sen­ate had goad­ed him to ex­treme mea­sures. A com­mis­sion of twen­ty was to be ap­point­ed to car­ry out the law, from which Cae­sar him­self was ex­press­ly ex­clud­ed. This mea­sure fi­nal­ly set­tled the ques­tion of the Cam­pa­ni­an land, which now passed out of the cat­ego­ry of ager pub­li­cus. The last agrar­ian law of the re­pub­lic was that passed in 44 B.C. on the pro­pos­al of the con­sul M. An­to­nius, or of his broth­er L. An­to­nius. We have no de­tailed ac­count of the mea­sure, but it seems to have pro­vid­ed grants of land for vet­er­ans, and was to be ad­min­is­tered by sev­en com­mis­sion­ers. The law was af­ter­wards can­celled by de­cree of the sen­ate, prob­ably on the ground of some tech­ni­cal flaw. The em­per­or Ves­pasian at­tempt­ed to re­claim for the state small odd­ments of land (sub­se­ci­va) which were held by neigh­bour­ing own­ers to whom they had nev­er been def­inite­ly as­signed. The at­tempt met with vi­olent op­po­si­tion, and though re­sumed by Ti­tus, was fi­nal­ly crushed by Domi­tian, who is­sued an edict rec­og­niz­ing all odd­ments of land thus held to be pri­vate prop­er­ty.

AU­THOR­ITIES.–Niebuhr, His­to­ry of Rome (En­glish trans­la­tion), ii. p. 129 foll. (Cam­bridge, 1832); Beck­er, Hand­buch der romis­chen Al­terthumer, iii. 2, p. 142 (Leipzig, 1843); Mar­quardt, Romis­che Staatsver­wal­tung, i. p. 96 foll. (Leipzig, 1881); Mad­vig, Ver­fas­sung und Ver­wal­tung des romis­chen Staates, ii. p. 364 foll. (Leipzig, 1882), (See al­so ROME, His­to­ry.) (A. H. J. G; A. M. CL.)

AGRE­DA, MARIA FER­NAN­DEZ CORO­NEL, ABBESS OF, known in re­li­gion as Sor (Sis­ter) Maria de Je­sus (1602-1665), was the daugh­ter of Don Fran­cis­co Coro­nel and of his wife Catali­na de Arana. She was born at Agre­da, on the bor­ders of Navarre and Aragon, on the 2nd of April 1602. All her fam­ily were pow­er­ful­ly in­flu­enced by the ec­stat­ic piety of Spain in that age. Her bi­og­ra­pher, Samaniego, records that even as an in­fant in arms she was filled with di­vine knowl­edge. Her stu­pid­ity as a child is pi­ous­ly ac­count­ed for by ex­treme hu­mil­ity. From child­hood she was favoured by ec­stasies and vi­sions. When she was fif­teen the whole fam­ily en­tered re­li­gion. The fa­ther, now an old man, and the two sons en­tered the Fran­cis­can house of San An­to­nio de Nal­da. Maria, her moth­er and sis­ter es­tab­lished a Fran­cis­can nun­nery in the fam­ily house at Agre­da, which, when Maria’s rep­uta­tion had ex­tend­ed, was re­placed by the ex­ist­ing build­ing. She be­gan it with one hun­dred re­als (one pound ster­ling) lent her by a devo­tee, and it was com­plet­ed in four­teen years by vol­un­tary gifts. Much against her own wish, we are told, she was ap­point­ed abbess at the age of twen­ty-​five. In 1668, four years af­ter her death, the Fran­cis­cans pub­lished a sto­ry that at the age of twen­ty-​two she had been mirac­ulous­ly con­veyed to Mex­ico, to con­vert a na­tive peo­ple, and had made five hun­dred jour­neys through the air for that pur­pose in one year. Though the rule re­quired the abbess to be changed ev­ery three years, Maria re­mained the ef­fec­tive ruler of Agre­da till her death. The Vir­gin was de­clared abbess, and Maria act­ed as her lo­cus tenens. In her lat­er years she in­clined to the “in­ter­nal prayer,” and ne­glect of the out­ward of­fices of the church, which was usu­al with the “alum­bra­dos” or Qui­etists. The In­qui­si­tion took no­tice of her, but she was not pro­ceed­ed against with sever­ity. Maria’s im­por­tance in re­li­gion and Span­ish his­to­ry is based on two grounds. In the ear­li­er part of her life, while the Fran­cis­can, Fran­cis­co An­dres de la Torre, was her con­fes­sor, she wrote an In­tro­duc­tion to the His­to­ry of the Most Blessed Vir­gin. It was de­stroyed by the di­rec­tion of an­oth­er con­fes­sor. Lat­er on, by the or­der of her su­pe­ri­ors, and un­der the guid­ance of her Fran­cis­can con­fes­sor, An­dres de Fuen May­or, she wrote The Mys­tic City of God. It is an ex­traor­di­nary book, full of apoc­ryphal his­to­ry, vi­sions and scholas­ti­cism, which pro­fess­es to have been writ­ten by di­vine in­spi­ra­tion, and is de­vot­ed to praise of the Vir­gin. In 1642 she sent to Philip IV. an ac­count of a vi­sion she had had, of a coun­cil of the in­fer­nal pow­ers for the de­struc­tion of Catholi­cism and Spain. The king vis­it­ed her when on his way to Aragon to sup­press the re­bel­lion of Cat­alo­nia. A long cor­re­spon­dence, which last­ed till her death on the 29th of March 1665, was be­gun. The king fold­ed a sheet of pa­per down the mid­dle and wrote on the one side of the di­vi­sion. The an­swers were to be writ­ten on the oth­er and the sheet re­turned. By a pi­ous fraud copies were kept at Agre­da. How far Maria was on­ly the mouth­piece of the Fran­cis­cans must of course be a mat­ter of doubt. Her cor­re­spon­dence was ap­par­ent­ly sus­pend­ed when­ev­er her con­fes­sor was ab­sent. She must, how­ev­er, have co-​op­er­at­ed at least, and it is cer­tain that the Fran­cis­cans, who were very un­for­tu­nate in some of their pi­ous wom­en, owed not a lit­tle to her. The let­ters are in ex­cel­lent Span­ish, are cu­ri­ous read­ing, and are in­valu­able as il­lus­tra­tions for the sec­ond part of the reign of Philip IV.

The cor­re­spon­dence of Sor Maria with the king has been pub­lished in full by Don F. Siluela, Car­tas de la Ven­er­able Madre Sor Maria de Agre­da y del Senor Rey Don Fil­ipe IV. (Madrid, 1885). The Mys­tic City of God is one of the most char­ac­ter­is­tic mon­uments of Mar­io­la­try, and has con­tin­ued to be much in favour with sup­port­ers of the dog­ma of the Im­mac­ulate Con­cep­tion. It ap­peared in Madrid in 1668, with a bi­ograph­ical in­tro­duc­tion by Samaniego, has been of­ten reprint­ed, and was trans­lat­ed in­to French and Ital­ian. It was for a time re­served by the In­dex, both Span­ish and Pa­pal, but was tak­en off by the in­flu­ence of the Fran­cis­cans and of Spain, the chief sup­port­ers of the im­mac­ulate Con­cep­tion. An ac­count of Maria de Agre­da will be found in the Tracts of Michael Ged­des (Lon­don, 1706),vol. iii., writ­ten by a com­pe­tent crit­ic and An­gli­can di­vine of the 18th cen­tu­ry who de­test­ed “en­thu­si­asm.” (D. H.)

AGRI­CO­LA, CHRISTOPH LUD­WIG (1667-1719), Ger­man land­scape painter, was born and died at Re­gens­burg (Ratis­bon). He spent a great part of his life in trav­el, vis­it­ing Eng­land, Hol­land and France, and re­sid­ing for a con­sid­er­able pe­ri­od at Naples. His nu­mer­ous land­scapes, chiefly cab­inet pic­tures, are re­mark­able for fi­deli­ty to na­ture, and es­pe­cial­ly for their skil­ful rep­re­sen­ta­tion of var­ied phas­es of cli­mate. In com­po­si­tion his style shows the in­flu­ence of Cas­par Poussin, while in light and colour he im­itates Claude Lor­raine. His pic­tures are to be found in Dres­den, Brunswick, Vi­en­na, Flo­rence, Naples and many oth­er towns of both Ger­many and Italy.

AGRI­CO­LA (the La­tinized form of the name BAUER), GEORG (1490-1555), Ger­man schol­ar and man of sci­ence, known as “the fa­ther of min­er­al­ogy,” was born at Glauchau in Sax­ony on the 24th of March 1490. Gift­ed with a pre­co­cious in­tel­lect, he ear­ly threw him­self in­to the pur­suit of the “new learn­ing,” with such ef­fect that at the age of twen­ty he was ap­point­ed Rec­tor ex­traor­di­nar­ius of Greek at the so-​called Great School of Zwick­au, and made his ap­pear­ance as a writ­er on philol­ogy. Af­ter two years he gave up his ap­point­ment in or­der to pur­sue his stud­ies at Leipzig, where, as rec­tor, he re­ceived the pow­er­ful sup­port of the pro­fes­sor of clas­sics, Pe­ter Mosel­lanus (1493-1524), a cel­ebrat­ed hu­man­ist of the time, with whom he had al­ready been in cor­re­spon­dence. Here he al­so de­vot­ed him­self to the study of medicine, physics and chem­istry. Af­ter the death of Mosel­lanus he went for a short time to Italy, where he took his doc­tor’s de­gree. On his re­turn he set­tled as prac­tis­ing physi­cian in the Joachim­stal, a cen­tre of min­ing and smelt­ing works, his ob­ject be­ing part­ly “to fill in the gaps in the art of heal­ing,” part­ly to test what had been writ­ten about min­er­al­ogy by care­ful ob­ser­va­tion of ores and the meth­ods of their treat­ment. His thor­ough ground­ing in philol­ogy and phi­los­ophy had ac­cus­tomed him to sys­tem­at­ic think­ing, and this en­abled him to con­struct out of his stud­ies and ob­ser­va­tions of min­er­als a log­ical sys­tem which he be­gan to pub­lish in 1528. Berman­nus, sive de re metal­li­ca di­alo­gus, the first at­tempt to re­duce to sci­en­tif­ic or­der the knowl­edge won by prac­ti­cal work, brought Agri­co­la in­to no­tice. In 1530 Prince Mau­rice of Sax­ony ap­point­ed him his­to­ri­og­ra­pher with an an­nu­al al­lowance, and he mi­grat­ed to Chem­nitz, the cen­tre of the min­ing in­dus­try, in or­der to widen the range of his ob­ser­va­tions. The cit­izens showed their ap­pre­ci­ation of his learn­ing by ap­point­ing him town physi­cian and elect­ing him bur­go­mas­ter. His pop­ular­ity was, how­ev­er, short-​lived. Chem­nitz was a vi­olent cen­tre of the Protes­tant move­ment, while Agri­co­la nev­er wa­vered in his al­le­giance to the old re­li­gion; and he was forced to re­sign his of­fice. He now lived apart from the con­tentious move­ments of the time, de­vot­ing him­self whol­ly to learn­ing. His chief in­ter­est was still in min­er­al­ogy; but he oc­cu­pied him­self al­so with med­ical, math­emat­ical, the­olog­ical and his­tor­ical sub­jects, his chief his­tor­ical work be­ing the Dom­ina­tores Sax­oni­ci a pri­ma orig­ine ad hanc ae­tatem, pub­lished at Freiberg. In 1544 he pub­lished the De or­tu et cau­sis sub­ter­ra­ne­orum, in which he laid the first foun­da­tions of a phys­ical ge­ol­ogy, and crit­icized the the­ories of the an­cients. In 1545 fol­lowed the De natu­ra eo­rum quae ef­flu­unt e ter­ra; in 1546 the De vet­eribus et no­vis met­allis, a com­pre­hen­sive ac­count of the dis­cov­ery and oc­cur­rence of min­er­als; in 1548 the De an­iman­tibus sub­ter­raneis; and in the two fol­low­ing years a num­ber of small­er works on the met­als. His most fa­mous work, the De re metal­li­ca, lib­ri xii., was pub­lished in 1556, though ap­par­ent­ly fin­ished sev­er­al years be­fore, since the ded­ica­tion to the elec­tor and his broth­er is dat­ed 1550. It is a com­plete and sys­tem­at­ic trea­tise on min­ing and met­al­lur­gy, il­lus­trat­ed with many fine and in­ter­est­ing wood­cuts and con­tain­ing, in an ap­pendix, the Ger­man equiv­alents for the tech­ni­cal terms used in the Latin text. It long re­mained a stan­dard work, and marks its au­thor as one of the most ac­com­plished chemists of his time. Be­liev­ing the black rock of the Schloss­berg at Stolpen to be the same as Pliny’s basalt, he ap­plied this name to it, and thus orig­inat­ed a petro­log­ical term which has been per­ma­nent­ly in­cor­po­rat­ed in the vo­cab­ulary of sci­ence.

In spite of the ear­ly proof that Agri­co­la had giv­en of the tol­er­ance of his own re­li­gious at­ti­tude, he was not suf­fered to end his days in peace. He re­mained to the end a staunch Catholic, though all Chem­nitz had gone over to the Luther­an creed; and it is said that his life was end­ed by a fit of apoplexy brought on by a heat­ed dis­cus­sion with a Protes­tant di­vine. He died at Chem­nitz on the 21st of Novem­ber 1555, and so vi­olent was the the­olog­ical feel­ing against him, that he was not suf­fered to rest in the town to which he had added lus­tre. Amidst hos­tile demon­stra­tions he was car­ried to Zeitz, sev­en miles from Chem­nitz, and there buried.

See ar­ti­cle by Gum­bel in All­gem. Deutsche Biog. (1875); F. L. Bech­er, Georg Agri­co­la und Wern­er (Freiberg, 1819); F. A. Schmidt, Georg Agri­co­la’s Berman­nus mit Ein­leitung (Freiberg, 1806); Poggen­dorff, Bi­ographis­ches Hand­worter­buch; Agri­co­la’s works pas­sim.

AGRI­CO­LA, GNAEUS JULIUS (A.D. 37-93), Ro­man states­man and gen­er­al, fa­ther-​in-​law of the his­to­ri­an Tac­itus, was born on the 13th of June A.D. 37 (ac­cord­ing to oth­ers, 39) at Fo­rum Julii (Fre­jus) in Gal­lia Nar­bo­nen­sis. His fa­ther, Julius Graeci­nus, hav­ing been put to death by Caligu­la, Agri­co­la was brought up by his moth­er Ju­lia Procil­la. Af­ter study­ing phi­los­ophy at Mas­sil­ia, he en­tered the army and served (59) un­der Sue­to­nius Pauli­nus in Britain. In 61 he re­turned to Rome, where he mar­ried Domi­tia De­cid­iana, a Ro­man la­dy of dis­tinc­tion. In 63 he was quaestor in Asia, in 65 tri­bune, in 68 prae­tor, and when Ves­pasian was pro­claimed em­per­or, he im­me­di­ate­ly de­clared him­self his sup­port­er. In 70 he was ap­point­ed to the com­mand of the 20th le­gion in Britain, then sta­tioned at De­va (Chester). On his re­turn to Rome at the end of three years he was made cen­sor, raised to the rank of pa­tri­cian, and ap­point­ed gov­er­nor of Aqui­tania (74-78). Ap­point­ed con­sul suf­fec­tus in the fol­low­ing year, he was ad­mit­ted in­to the col­lege of pon­tif­fs and made gov­er­nor of Britain. In the same year he be­trothed his daugh­ter to Tac­itus. Al­though the lega­tion of Britain last­ed as a rule on­ly three years, Agri­co­la held the post for at least sev­en and suc­ceed­ed in rec­on­cil­ing the in­hab­itants to Ro­man rule and in­duc­ing them to adopt the cus­toms and civ­iliza­tion of their con­querors. His mil­itary achieve­ments were equal­ly bril­liant. Af­ter con­quer­ing the Or­dovices in North Wales and the is­land of Mona (An­gle­sey), dur­ing the next two years he car­ried his vic­to­ri­ous arms to the Taus (Tay; oth­ers read Tanaus, per­haps the north Tyne), and in his fourth cam­paign for­ti­fied the coun­try be­tween Clota and Bodo­tria (the firths of Clyde and Forth) as a pro­tec­tion against the at­tacks of the Cale­do­nians. Hav­ing ex­plored the coasts of Fife and For­far, he gained a de­ci­sive vic­to­ry over the Cale­do­nians un­der Gal­ga­cus at the Grau­pi­an hill (see BRITAIN, Ro­man.) His suc­cess­es, how­ev­er, had aroused the en­vy and sus­pi­cion of Domi­tian. He was re­called to Rome, where he lived a life of stud­ied re­tire­ment, to avoid the pos­si­bil­ity of giv­ing of­fence to the tyrant. He died in 93, poi­soned, it was ru­moured, by the em­per­or’s or­ders. The Life of Agri­co­la by his son-​in-​law Tac­itus is prac­ti­cal­ly a pan­egyric or fu­ner­al ora­tion.

See Urlichs, De Vi­ta et Hon­oribus Agri­co­lae (1868); Dio Cas­sius xxxix. 50, lxvi. 20: Momm­sen, Provinces of the Ro­man Em­pire (Eng. trans., 1886), i. 183-184, 194.

AGRI­CO­LA, JO­HANN FRIEDRICH (1720-1774), Ger­man mu­si­cian, was born at Do­bitschen in Saxe-​Al­tenburg, on the 4th of Jan­uary 1720. While a stu­dent of law at Leipzig he stud­ied mu­sic un­der Jo­hann Se­bas­tian Bach. In 1741 he went to Berlin, where he stud­ied mu­si­cal com­po­si­tion. He was soon gen­er­al­ly rec­og­nized as one of the most skil­ful or­gan­ists of his time; and in 1751, as the re­sult of a com­ic opera, Il Filoso­fo con­vin­to in amore, per­formed at Pots­dam, he was made court com­pos­er to Fred­er­ick the Great. He died in Berlin on the 1st of De­cem­ber 1774. In 1759, on the death of Karl Hein­rich Graun, he was ap­point­ed con­duc­tor of the roy­al or­ches­tra. Be­sides sev­er­al op­eras of mer­it, he com­posed in­stru­men­tal pieces and church mu­sic. His rep­uta­tion chiefly rests, how­ev­er, on his the­oret­ical and crit­ical writ­ings on mu­si­cal sub­jects. He wrote un­der the pseudonym of Flavio Ani­cio Olib­rio.

AGRI­CO­LA (orig­inal­ly SCHNEI­DER, then SCHNIT­TER), JO­HANNES (1494-1566), Ger­man Protes­tant re­former, was born on the 20th of April 1494, at Eisleben, whence he is some­times called Mag­is­ter Islebius. He stud­ied at Wit­ten­berg, where he soon gained the friend­ship of Luther. In 1519 he ac­com­pa­nied Luther to the great as­sem­bly of Ger­man di­vines at Leipzig, and act­ed as record­ing sec­re­tary. Af­ter teach­ing for some time in Wit­ten­berg, he went to Frank­fort in 1525 to es­tab­lish the re­formed mode of wor­ship. He had resid­ed there on­ly a month when he was called to Eisleben, where he re­mained till 1526 as teach­er in the school of St An­drew, and preach­er in the Nico­lai church. In 1536 he was re­called to teach in Wit­ten­berg, and was wel­comed by Luther. Al­most im­me­di­ate­ly, how­ev­er, a con­tro­ver­sy, which had been be­gun ten years be­fore and been tem­porar­ily si­lenced, broke out more vi­olent­ly than ev­er. Agri­co­la was the first to teach the views which Luther was the first to stig­ma­tize by the now well-​known name Anti­no­mi­an (q.v.), main­tain­ing that while the un­re­gen­er­ate were still un­der the Mo­sa­ic law, Chris­tians were en­tire­ly free from it, be­ing un­der the gospel alone. In con­se­quence of the bit­ter con­tro­ver­sy with Luther that re­sult­ed, Agri­co­la in 1540 left Wit­ten­berg se­cret­ly for Berlin, where he pub­lished a let­ter ad­dressed to the elec­tor of Sax­ony, which was gen­er­al­ly in­ter­pret­ed as a re­can­ta­tion of his ob­nox­ious views. Luther, how­ev­er, seems not to have so ac­cept­ed it, and Agri­co­la re­mained at Berlin. The elec­tor Joachim II. of Bran­den­burg, hav­ing tak­en him in­to his favour, ap­point­ed him court preach­er and gen­er­al su­per­in­ten­dent. He held both of­fices un­til his death in 1566, and his ca­reer in Bran­den­burg was one of great ac­tiv­ity and in­flu­ence. Along with Julius von Pflug, bish­op of Naum­burg-​Zeitz, and Michael Held­ing, tit­ular bish­op of Sidon. he pre­pared the Augs­burg In­ter­im of 1548. He en­deav­oured in vain to ap­pease the Adi­apho­ris­tic con­tro­ver­sy (see ADI­APHO­RISTS.) He died dur­ing an epi­dem­ic of plague on the 22nd of Septem­ber 1566. Agri­co­la wrote a num­ber of the­olog­ical works which are now of lit­tle in­ter­est. He was the first to make a col­lec­tion of Ger­man proverbs which he il­lus­trat­ed with a com­men­tary. The most com­plete edi­tion, which con­tains sev­en hun­dred and fifty proverbs, is that pub­lished at Wit­ten­berg in 1592; a mod­ern one is that of La­ten­dorf, 1862.

See Cordes, Joh. Agri­co­la’s Schriften moglichst verze­ich­net (Al­tona, 1817); Life by G. Kaw­er­au (1881), who al­so wrote the no­tice in Hauck-​Her­zog, Realen­cyk. fur prot. The­ol., where oth­er lit­er­ature is cit­ed.

AGRI­CO­LA, MAR­TIN (c. 1500-1556), Ger­man mu­si­cian, was born about 1500 in Low­er Sile­sia. His Ger­man name was Sohr or Sore. From 1524 till his death he lived at Magde­burg, where he oc­cu­pied the post of teach­er or can­tor in the Protes­tant school. The sen­ator and mu­sic-​print­er Rhau, of Wit­ten­berg, was a close friend of Agri­co­la, whose the­oret­ical works, pro­vid­ing valu­able ma­te­ri­al con­cern­ing the change from the old to the new sys­tem of no­ta­tion, he pub­lished. Agri­co­la was al­so the first to har­mo­nize in four parts Luther’s chorale, Ein’ feste Burg.

Four oth­er Agri­co­las1 are known as com­posers be­tween the end of the 15th cen­tu­ry and the mid­dle of the 17th.

In the 18th cen­tu­ry we find Bur­ney, in the course of his tour in Ger­many (1772), much im­pressed by JO­HANN FRIEDRICH AGRI­CO­LA (1720-1774), court com­pos­er and di­rec­tor of the roy­al chapel to Fred­er­ick the Great. This Agri­co­la was a pupil of Bach, and a fine or­gan­ist and clever writ­er on mu­sic, es­pe­cial­ly on op­er­at­ic style, the prob­lems of which were be­gin­ning to be raised by French writ­ers-​and com­posers in prepa­ra­tion for the work of Gluck.

AGRI­CO­LA, RODOL­PHUS (prop­er­ly ROELOF HUYS­MANN) (1443-1485), Dutch schol­ar, was born at Baflo, near Gronin­gen, in 1443. He was ed­ucat­ed at Lou­vain, where he grad­uat­ed as mas­ter of arts. Af­ter re­sid­ing for some time in Paris, he went in 1476 to Fer­rara in Italy, and at­tend­ed the lec­tures of the cel­ebrat­ed Theodor­us Gaza (1400-1478) on the Greek lan­guage. Hav­ing vis­it­ed Pavia and Rome, he re­turned to his na­tive coun­try about 1479, and was soon af­ter­wards ap­point­ed syn­dic of Gronin­gen. In 1482, on the in­vi­ta­tion of Jo­hann von Dal­berg, bish­op of Worms (1445-1503), whose friend­ship he had gained in Italy, he ac­cept­ed a pro­fes­sor­ship at Hei­del­berg, and for three years de­liv­ered lec­tures there and at Worms on the lit­er­ature of Greece and Rome. By his per­son­al in­flu­ence much more than by his writ­ings he did much for the pro­mo­tion of learn­ing in Ger­many; and Eras­mus and oth­er crit­ics of the gen­er­ation im­me­di­ate­ly suc­ceed­ing his own are full of his prais­es. In his op­po­si­tion to the scholas­tic phi­los­ophy he in some de­gree an­tic­ipat­ed the great in­tel­lec­tu­al rev­olu­tion in which many of his pupils were con­spic­uous ac­tors. He died at Hei­del­berg on the 28th of Oc­to­ber 1485. His prin­ci­pal work is De in­ven­tione di­alec­ti­ca, lib­ri iii., in which he at­tempts to change the scholas­tic phi­los­ophy of the day.

See T. F. Tres­ling, Vi­ta et Meri­ta Rudol­phi Agri­co­lae (Gronin­gen, 1830); v. Be­zold, R. Agri­co­la (Munchen, 1884): and Ihm, Der Hu­man­ist R. Agri­co­la, sein Leben und seine Schriften (Paderb., 1893).

AGRI­CUL­TUR­AL GANGS, groups of wom­en, girls and boys or­ga­nized by an in­de­pen­dent gang-​mas­ter, un­der whose su­per­vi­sion they ex­ecute agri­cul­tur­al piece-​work for farm­ers in cer­tain parts of Eng­land. They are some­times called “pub­lic gangs” to dis­tin­guish them from “pri­vate gangs” con­sist­ing of work­ers en­gaged by the farmer him­self, and un­der­tak­ing work sole­ly for him, un­der his own su­per­vi­sion or un­der that of one of his men. The sys­tem was for long preva­lent in the coun­ties of Cam­bridgeshire, Hunt­ing­don­shire, Lin­colnshire, Not­ting­hamshire, Nor­folk and Suf­folk, and is still to be found in a much mod­ified form in the fen dis­trict. The prac­tice dates from the lat­ter years of the reign of George III., when the low-​ly­ing, marshy lands sur­round­ing the basin of the Wash were be­ing rapid­ly drained and con­vert­ed in­to rich al­lu­vial dis­tricts. The un­re­formed con­di­tion of the poor-​law, un­der which the sup­port of the poor fell up­on each in­di­vid­ual parish, in­stead of a union of parish­es, made land­lords re­luc­tant to erect cot­tages on the re­claimed land for the ben­efit of their ten­ants. Labour had to be ob­tained for the cul­ti­va­tion of these new lands, and that of wom­en, girls and boys, be­ing cheap­er than the labour of men, was con­se­quent­ly very large­ly em­ployed. The ten­den­cy to moral and phys­ical ru­in which re­sult­ed from this no­madic life was so great that an in­quiry in­to the con­di­tion of agri­cul­tur­al child-​labour was in­clud­ed in the ref­er­ence to the com­mis­sion on child-​labour ap­point­ed in 1862, and the re­sults were so startling that the Agri­cul­tur­al Gangs Act was passed in 1867, for­bid­ding the em­ploy­ment of any child un­der eight years old, and of any fe­male un­der a male gang­mas­ter un­less a fe­male li­censed to act as gang-​mis­tress were al­so

1 Alexan­der, died 1506; Jo­hann, flor. 1600; Wolf­gang Christoph, flor. 1630; and George Lud­wig, 1643-1676. 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

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 EGYPT.)

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.

Bib­li­cal ac­counts among the Is­raelites.

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 the rains to­wards the end of the sea­son were more or less co­pi­ous. It, how­ev­er, gen­er­al­ly be­gan in April, and con­tin­ued through May for the dif­fer­ent crops in suc­ces­sion. In the south, and in the plains, the har­vest, as might be ex­pect­ed, com­menced some weeks ear­li­er than in the north­ern and moun­tain­ous dis­tricts. The slopes of the hills were care­ful­ly ter­raced and ir­ri­gat­ed wher­ev­er prac­ti­ca­ble, and on these slopes the vine and olive were cul­ti­vat­ed with great suc­cess. At the same time the hill dis­tricts and neigh­bour­ing deserts af­ford­ed pas­turage for nu­mer­ous flocks and herds, and thus ad­mit­ted of the ben­efits of a mixed hus­bandry. Not by a fig­ure of speech but lit­er­al­ly, ev­ery Is­raelite sat un­der the shad­ow of his own vine and fig-​tree; whilst the coun­try as a whole is de­scribed (2 Kings xvi­ii. 32) as “a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vine­yards, a land Of oil olive and of hon­ey.”

The ear­li­est known forms of in­ten­sive hus­bandry were based chiefly up­on the prox­im­ity of rivers and ir­ri­ga­tion. The

Greece.

agri­cul­ture of clas­si­cal ages was slight­ly more de­vel­oped in so far as the hus­band­man of Greece and Rome was less like­ly to leave to na­ture the fer­til­iza­tion of the soil. Greece be­ing a moun­tain­ous land was favourable to the cul­ture of the vine rather than to that of ce­re­als. Scanty in­for­ma­tion on its agri­cul­ture is to be de­rived from the Works and Days of Hes­iod (about the 8th cen­tu­ry B.C.), the Oe­co­nomi­cus of Xenophon (4th cen­tu­ry B.C.), the His­to­ry o/ Plants and the Ori­gin o/. Plants of Theophras­tus (4th cen­tu­ry B.C..)The lat­ter is the first writ­er on botany, and his works al­so con­tain in­ter­est­ing re­marks on ma­nures, the mix­ing of soils and oth­er agri­cul­tur­al top­ics (see al­so GEO­PONI­CI.) Greek hus­bandry had no salient char­ac­ter­is­tics. The sum­mer fal­low with re­peat­ed plough­ing was its ba­sis. The young crop was hoed, reap­ing was per­formed with a sick­le, and a high stub­ble left on the ground as ma­nure. The meth­ods of thresh­ing and win­now­ing were the same as those in use in an­cient Egypt. Wheat, bar­ley and spelt were the lead­ing crops. Mead­ows were pas­tured rather than mown. At­ti­ca was fa­mous for its olives and figs, but gen­er­al agri­cul­ture ex­celled in Pelo­pon­nesus, where, by means of ir­ri­ga­tion and drainage, all the avail­able land was uti­lized.

In the ear­ly days of the Ro­man re­pub­lic land in Italy was held large­ly by small pro­pri­etors, and agri­cul­ture was high­ly es­teemed

Rome.

and classed with war as an oc­cu­pa­tion be­com­ing a free man. The sto­ry of Cincin­na­tus, twice sum­moned from the plough to the high­est of­fices in the state, il­lus­trates the sta­tus of the Ro­man hus­band­man. The lat­er ten­den­cy was to­wards the ab­sorp­tion of small­er hold­ings in­to large es­tates. As wealth in­creased the peas­ant-​farmer gave way be­fore the large landown­er, who cul­ti­vat­ed his prop­er­ty by means of slave-​labour, su­per­in­tend­ed by slave-​bailiffs. The low price of grain, which was im­port­ed in huge quan­ti­ties from Sici­ly and oth­er Ro­man provinces, op­er­at­ed to crush the small hold­er, at the same time as it made arable farm­ing un­re­mu­ner­ative. Sheep-​rais­ing, in­volv­ing larg­er hold­ings, less su­per­vi­sion and less labour, was pre­ferred by the cap­ital­ist land-​hold­er to the cul­ti­va­tion of the wheat, spelt, vines or olives which were the chief crops of the coun­try. Lupine, beans, peas and vetch­es were grown for fod­der, and mead­ows, of­ten ar­ti­fi­cial­ly wa­tered, sup­plied hay. Swine and poul­try were used for food to a greater ex­tent than ox­en, which were bred chiefly for plough­ing. The fol­low­ing epit­ome of Vir­gil’s ad­vice to the hus­band­man in the first book of the Geor­gics sug­gests the out­line of Ro­man hus­bandry: “First learn the pe­cu­liar­ities of your soil and cli­mate. Plough the fal­low in ear­ly spring, and plough fre­quent­ly–twice in win­ter, twice in sum­mer un­less your land is poor, when a light plough­ing in Septem­ber will do. Ei­ther let the land lie fal­low ev­ery oth­er year or else let spelt fol­low pulse, vetch­es or lupine. Rep­eti­tion of one crop ex­hausts the ground; ro­ta­tion will light­en the strain, on­ly the ex­haust­ed soil must be co­pi­ous­ly dressed with ma­nure or ash­es. It of­ten does good to burn the stub­ble on the ground. Har­row down the clods, lev­el the ridges by cross plough­ing, work the land thor­ough­ly. Ir­ri­ga­tion ben­efits a sandy soil, drain­ing a marshy soil. It is well to feed down a lux­uri­ant crop when the plants are lev­el with the ridge tops. Geese and cranes, chico­ry, mildew, this­tles, cleavers, cal­trops, dar­nel and shade are farmer’s en­emies. Scare off the birds, har­row up the weeds, cut down all that shades the crop. Ploughs, wag­gons, thresh­ing-​sledges, har­rows, bas­kets, hur­dles, win­now­ing-​fans are the farmer’s im­ple­ments. The plough con­sists of sev­er­al parts made of sea­soned wood. The thresh­ing-​floor must be smooth and rammed hard to leave no crevices for weeds and small an­imals to get through. Some steep seed in so­da and oil lees to get a larg­er pro­duce. Care­ful an­nu­al se­lec­tion by hand of the best seed is the on­ly way to pre­vent de­gen­er­ation. It is best to mow stub­ble and hay at night when they are moist.”

In ad­di­tion to the use of sev­er­al kinds of an­imal and oth­er ma­nures, green crops were some­times ploughed in by the Ro­mans. The shrewd­ness which, more than in­ven­tive­ness, char­ac­ter­ized their hus­bandry comes out well in the fol­low­ing quo­ta­tion from the 18th book of the Nat­ural His­to­ry of Pliny:–“Cato would have this point es­pe­cial­ly to be con­sid­ered, that the soil of a farm be good and fer­tile; al­so, that near it there be plen­ty of labour­ers and that it be not far from a large town; more­over, that it have suf­fi­cient means for trans­port­ing its pro­duce, ei­ther by wa­ter or land. Al­so that the house be well built, and the land about it as well man­aged. They are in er­ror who hold the opin­ion that the neg­li­gence and bad hus­bandry of the for­mer own­er is good for his suc­ces­sor. Now, I say there is noth­ing more dan­ger­ous and dis­ad­van­ta­geous to the buy­er than land so left waste and out of heart; and there­fore Cato coun­sels well to pur­chase land of one who has man­aged it well, and not rash­ly to de­spise and make light of the skill and knowl­edge of an­oth­er.”

Ro­man writ­ers on agri­cul­ture (see GEO­PONI­CI) are more nu­mer­ous than those of Greece. The ear­li­est im­por­tant trea­tis­es are the De re Rus­ti­ca of Cato (234-149 B.C.) and the Re­rum Rus­ti­carum Lib­ri of Var­ro. More fa­mous than ei­ther are the Geor­gics of Vir­gil, pub­lished about 30 B.C., and treat­ing of tillage, hor­ti­cul­ture, cat­tle-​breed­ing and bee-​keep­ing. The works of Col­umel­la (1st cen­tu­ry A.D.) and of Pal­la­dius (4th cen­tu­ry A.D.) are ex­haus­tive trea­tis­es, and the Nat­ural His­to­ry of the el­der Pliny (A.D. 23-70) con­tains con­sid­er­able in­for­ma­tion on hus­bandry. Un­der the lat­er em­pire agri­cul­ture sank in­to a con­di­tion of ne­glect, in which it re­mained through­out the Dark Ages. In Spain its re­vival was due to the Sara­cens, and by them, and their suc­ces­sors the Moors, agri­cul­ture was car­ried to a high pitch of ex­cel­lence. The work on agri­cul­ture1 of Ibn-​al-​Awame, who lived in the 12th cen­tu­ry A.D., treats of the va­ri­eties of soils, ma­nur­ing, ir­ri­ga­tion, plough­ing, sow­ing, har­vest­ing, stock, hor­ti­cul­ture, ar­bori­cul­ture and plant dis­eases, and is a last­ing record of their skill and in­dus­try.

The sub­se­quent his­to­ry of agri­cul­ture is treat­ed in the fol­low­ing pages pri­mar­ily from the British stand­point. Doubt­less Flan­ders may claim to be the pi­oneer of “high farm­ing” in me­dieval times, oth­er coun­tries fol­low­ing her lead in many re­spects. It is not, how­ev­er, nec­es­sary to deal with the agri­cul­tur­al evo­lu­tion of con­ti­nen­tal Eu­rope, the grad­ual progress of agri­cul­ture as a whole be­ing well enough typ­ified in the sto­ry of its de­vel­op­ment in Eng­land, which in­deed has led the way in mod­ern times. Af­ter sec­tions on the his­to­ry and chief mod­ern fea­tures of British agri­cul­ture, a sep­arate ac­count is giv­en of the gen­er­al fea­tures of Amer­ican agri­cul­ture.

HIS­TO­RY OF EN­GLISH AGRI­CUL­TURE

The “com­bined” or “com­mon-​field” sys­tem of hus­bandry prac­tised by the vil­lage com­mu­ni­ty or town­ship (see VIL­LAGE COM­MU­NI­TIES) may be tak­en as the start­ing-​point of En­glish agri­cul­ture, in which, till the end of the 18th cen­tu­ry, it is a dom­inant in­flu­ence. The ter­ri­to­ry of the “town­ship” con­sist­ed of arable land, mead­ow, pas­ture and waste. The arable land was di­vid­ed in­to two or, more usu­al­ly, three fields, which were cut up in­to strips bound­ed by balks and al­lot­ted to the vil­lagers in such a way that one hold­ing might in­clude sev­er­al dis­con­nect­ed strips in each field–a mea­sure de­signed to pre­vent the whole of the best land falling to one man. The fields were fenced in from seed-​time to har­vest, af­ter which the fences were tak­en down and the cat­tle turned in to feed on the stub­ble. Ac­cord­ing to ear­ly meth­ods of crop­ping, which were des­tined to pre­vail for cen­turies, wheat, the chief ar­ti­cle of food, was sown in one au­tumn, reaped the next Au­gust; the fol­low­ing spring, oats or bar­ley were sown, and the year fol­low­ing the har­vest was a pe­ri­od of fal­low. This pro­ce­dure was fol­lowed on each of the three fields so that in ev­ery year one of them was fal­low. In ad­di­tion to the ce­re­als, beans, peas and vetch­es were grown to some ex­tent. The mead­ow-​land was al­so di­vid­ed in­to strips from which the var­ious hold­ers drew their sup­ply of hay. The pas­ture-​land was com­mon to all, though the num­ber of beasts which one man might turn in­to it was some­times lim­it­ed. Rough graz­ing could al­so be had on the out­ly­ing waste lands. In the ab­sence of ar­ti­fi­cial grass­es and roots, hay was very valu­able; it con­sti­tut­ed al­most the on­ly win­ter food for live stock, which were con­se­quent­ly in poor con­di­tion in spring.

Un­der the mano­ri­al sys­tem, the rise of which pre­ced­ed the Nor­man Con­quest, com­mu­nal meth­ods of hus­bandry re­mained, but the po­si­tion of the cul­ti­va­tor was rad­ical­ly al­tered. “Villeins,” in­stead of free-​hold­ers, formed the most nu­mer­ous class of the pop­ula­tion. They were bound to the soil and oc­cu­pied hold­ings of scat­tered strips (amount­ing usu­al­ly to a vir­gate or 30 acres) in re­turn for a pay­ment part­ly in labour and part­ly in kind. A por­tion of the manor, gen­er­al­ly about a third, con­sti­tut­ed the lord’s demesne, which, though some­times sep­arate, usu­al­ly con­sist­ed of strips in­ter­min­gled with those of his villeins. It thus formed part of the com­mon farm and was cul­ti­vat­ed by the villeins and their ox­en un­der the su­per­in­ten­dence of a bailiff. Be­low the villeins in the so­cial scale came the cot­tiers pos­sess­ing small­er hold­ings, some­times on­ly a gar­den, and no ox­en. Free ten­ants and, af­ter the Nor­man Con­quest, slaves formed small pro­por­tions of the pop­ula­tion. Dur­ing the mid­dle ages cat­tle and sheep were the chief farm an­imals, but the in­ter­mix­ture of stock con­se­quent on the com­mon-​field sys­tem was a bar­ri­er to im­prove­ment in the breed and con­duced to the prop­aga­tion of dis­ease. Ox­en, usu­al­ly yoked in teams of eight, were used for plough­ing. Sheep were small and their fleeces light, nev­er­the­less, ow­ing to the mea­greness of the yields of ce­re­als2 and the de­mand for wool for ex­port, sheep-​farm­ing was looked to, as ear­ly as the 12th cen­tu­ry, as the chief source of prof­it. Pigs and poul­try were uni­ver­sal­ly kept. The trea­tise on hus­bandry of Wal­ter of Hen­ley, dat­ing from the ear­ly 13th cen­tu­ry, is very valu­able as de­scrib­ing the man­age­ment of the demesne un­der the two- or three-​field sys­tem. The fol­low­ing are typ­ical pas­sages:–

“April is a good sea­son for fal­low­ing, if the earth breaks up be­hind the plough: for sec­ond fal­low­ing af­ter St John’s Day when the dust ris­es be­hind the plough; for seed-​plough­ing when the earth is well set­tled and not too cracked; how­ev­er, the busy man can­not be al­ways wait­ing on the sea­sons.” “At sow­ing do not plough large fur­rows, but lit­tle and well laid to­geth­er, that the seed may fall even­ly.”

“Know that an acre sown with wheat takes three plough­ings, ex­cept lands that are sown each year, and that each plough­ing costs 6d. more or less and the har­row­ing 1d. It is well to sow at least two bushels to the acre.”

“Change your seed ev­ery year at Michael­mas, for the seed grown on oth­er land will bring you more than that grown on your own.”

“Nei­ther sell your stub­ble nor move it from the ground un­less you need it for thatch­ing. Have ma­nure put up in heaps and mixed with earth.”

“Ridge marshy ground so as to let the wa­ter run off.”

Dur­ing the 13th cen­tu­ry there arose a ten­den­cy to com­mute labour-​rents for mon­ey pay­ments. This change led to the grad­ual dis­ap­pear­ance of ten­ants in villeinage–the villeins and cot­tiers–and the rise on the one hand of the small in­de­pen­dent farmer, on the oth­er of the hired labour­er. The plague of 1348 marks an epoch in En­glish agri­cul­ture. The diminu­tion of the pop­ula­tion by one-​half led to a scarci­ty of labour and an in­crease of wages which de­prived the landown­er of his nar­row mar­gin of prof­it. To meet this sit­ua­tion, the Statute of Labour­ers (1351) en­act­ed that no man should refuse to work at the same rate of wages as pre­vailed be­fore the plague. In ad­di­tion the landown­ers at­tempt­ed to re­vive the dis­ap­pear­ing sys­tem of labour-​rents. The bit­ter feel­ings en­gen­dered be­tween em­ploy­er and em­ployed cul­mi­nat­ed in the peas­ants’ re­volt of 1381. Mean­while large num­bers of landown­ers were forced to adopt one of two al­ter­na­tives. In some cas­es they ceased to farm their own land and let it out on lease of­ten to­geth­er with the stock up­on it; or else they aban­doned arable cul­ture, laid down their demesnes to pas­ture, en­closed the waste lands and de­vot­ed them­selves to sheep-​farm­ing. In the lat­ter course they were en­cour­aged by the high prices of wool dur­ing the 14th cen­tu­ry, and by Ed­ward III.’s pol­icy of fos­ter­ing both the ex­port of wool and the home man­ufac­ture of woollen goods. The 15th cen­tu­ry, bar­ren of progress in meth­ods of hus­bandry, was in its ear­ly years mod­er­ate­ly pros­per­ous. Lat­er on the in­creas­ing aban­don­ment of arable hus­bandry for sheep-​farm­ing brought about a less de­mand for labour, and ru­ral de­pop­ula­tion was ac­cel­er­at­ed as the peas­ant was de­prived of his graz­ing-​ground by the en­clo­sure of more and more of the waste land.3

From the be­gin­ning of the reign of Hen­ry VII. to the end of Eliz­abeth’s, a num­ber of statutes were made for the

Agri­cul­ture un­der the Tu­dors and Stu­arts.

en­cour­age­ment of tillage, though prob­ably to lit­tle pur­pose. “Where in some towns,” says the statute 4th Hen­ry VII. (1488), “two hun­dred per­sons were oc­cu­pied and lived of their law­ful labours. now there are oc­cu­pied two or three herds­men, and the residue fall in­to idle­ness”; there­fore it is or­dained that hous­es which with­in three years have been let for farms, with twen­ty acres of land ly­ing in tillage or hus­bandry, shall be up­held, un­der the penal­ty of half the prof­its, to be for­feit­ed to the king or the lord of the fee. Al­most half a cen­tu­ry af­ter­wards the prac­tice had be­come still more alarm­ing; and in 1534 a new act was tried, ap­par­ent­ly with as lit­tle suc­cess. “Some have 24,000 sheep, some 20,000 sheep, some 10,000, some 6000, some 4000, and some more and some less”; and yet it is al­leged the price of wool had near­ly dou­bled, “sheep be­ing come to a few per­sons’ hands.” A penal­ty was there­fore im­posed on all who kept above 2000 sheep; and no per­son was to take in farm more than two ten­ements of hus­bandry. By the 39th Eliz­abeth (1597) arable land made pas­ture since the 1st Eliz­abeth shall be again con­vert­ed in­to tillage, and what is arable shall not be con­vert­ed in­to pas­ture.

The lit­er­ature of agri­cul­ture, in abeyance since the trea­tise of Wal­ter of Hen­ley, makes an­oth­er be­gin­ning in the 16th cen­tu­ry. The best of the ear­ly works is the Book of Hus­bandry (1st ed. 1523), com­mon­ly as­cribed to Sir An­tho­ny Fitzher­bert, a judge of the Com­mon Pleas in the reign of Hen­ry VI­II., but more prob­ably writ­ten by his el­der broth­er John. This was fol­lowed by the Book of Sur­vey­ing and Im­prove­ments (1523), by the same au­thor. In the for­mer trea­tise we have a clear and minute de­scrip­tion of the ru­ral prac­tices of that pe­ri­od, and from the lat­ter may be learned a good deal of the econ­omy of the feu­dal sys­tem in its de­cline.

The Book of Hus­bandry be­gins with a de­scrip­tion of the plough and oth­er im­ple­ments, af­ter which about a third part of it is oc­cu­pied with the sev­er­al op­er­ations as they suc­ceed one an­oth­er through­out the year. Among oth­er pas­sages in this part of the work, the fol­low­ing de­serve no­tice:–

“Somme (ploughs) wyll tourn the sheld bred­ith at ev­ery land­sende, and plowe all one way”; the same kind of plough that is now found so use­ful on hilly grounds. Of wheel-​ploughs he ob­serves, that “they be good on even grounde that lyeth lyghte”; and on such lands they are still most com­mon­ly em­ployed. Cart-​wheels were some­times bound with iron; of which he great­ly ap­proves. On the much ag­itat­ed ques­tion about the em­ploy­ment of hors­es or ox­en in labour, the most im­por­tant ar­gu­ments are dis­tinct­ly stat­ed.

“In some places,” he says, “a horse plough is bet­ter,” and in oth­ers an ox­en plough, to which, up­on the whole, he gives the pref­er­ence. Beans and peas seem to have been com­mon crops. He men­tions the dif­fer­ent kinds of wheat, bar­ley and oats; and af­ter de­scrib­ing the method of har­row­ing “all man­er of cornnes,” we find the roller em­ployed. “They used to role their bar­ley grounde af­ter a showr of rayne, to make the grounde even to mowe.” Un­der the ar­ti­cle “To falowe,” he ob­serves, “the greater clottes (clods) the bet­ter wheate, for the clottes kepe the wheat warme all wyn­ter; and at March they will melte and breake and fal in manye small peces, the whiche is a new dong­yn­ge and re­freshyn­ge of the corne.” This is agree­able to the present prac­tice, found­ed on the very same rea­sons. “In May, the shepe folde is to be set out”; but Fitzher­bert does not much ap­prove of fold­ing, and points out its dis­ad­van­tages in a very ju­di­cious man­ner. “In the lat­ter end of May and the beg­yn­nyn­ge of June, is tyme to wede the corne”; and then we have an ac­cu­rate de­scrip­tion of the dif­fer­ent weeds, and the in­stru­ments and mode of weed­ing. Next comes a sec­ond plough­ing of the fal­low; and af­ter­wards, in the lat­ter end of June, the mow­ing of the mead­ows be­gins. Of this op­er­ation, and of the forks and rakes and the hay­mak­ing there is a very good ac­count. The corn har­vest nat­ural­ly fol­lows: rye and wheat were usu­al­ly shorn, and bar­ley and oats cut with the scythe. The writ­er does not ap­prove of the com­mon prac­tice of cut­ting wheat high and then mow­ing the stub­bles. “In Som­er­set­shire,” he says, “they do shere theyr wheat very lowe; and the wheate strawe that they pur­pose to make thacke of, they do not threshe it, but cut off the ears, and bynd it in sheves, and call it rede, and there­with they thacke theyr hous­es.” He rec­om­mends the prac­tice of set­ting up corn in shocks, with two sheaves to cov­er eight, in­stead of ten sheaves as at present–prob­ably ow­ing to the straw be­ing then short­er. The corn was com­mon­ly housed; but if there be a want of room, he ad­vis­es that the ricks be built on a scaf­fold and not up­on the ground. The fal­low re­ceived a third plough­ing in Septem­ber, and was sown about Michael­mas. “Wheat is moost com­mon­lye sowne un­der the forowe, that is to say, cast it up­pon the falowe, and then plowe it un­der”; and this branch of his sub­ject is con­clud­ed with di­rec­tions about thresh­ing, win­now­ing and oth­er kinds of barn-​work.

Fitzher­bert next pro­ceeds to live stock. “An hous­bande,” he says, “can not well thryue by his corne with­out he have oth­er cat­tell, nor by his cat­tell with­out corne. And by­cause that shepe, in myne opy­ny­on, is the mooste pro­fyta­blest cat­tell that any man can haue, there­fore I pour­pose to speake fyrst of shepe.” His re­marks on this sub­ject are so ac­cu­rate that one might imag­ine they came from a store­mas­ter of the present day.

In some places at present “they neuer seuer their lambes from their dammes”; “and the poore of the peeke (high) coun­tr­eye, and such oth­er places, where, as they vse to mylke theyr ewes, they vse to wayne theyr lambes at 12 weekes olde, and to mylke their ewes fi­ue or syxe weekes”; but that, he ob­serves, “is greate hurte to the ewes, and wyll cause them that they wyll not take the ramme at the tvme of the yere for pouer­tye, but goo bar­reyne.” “In June is tyme to shere shepe; and ere they be shorne, they must be verye well washen, the which shall be to the own­er greate pro­fyte in the sale of his wool, and al­so to the clothe-​mak­er.”

His re­marks on hors­es, cat­tle, &c., are not less in­ter­est­ing; and there is a very good ac­count of the dis­eases of each species, and some just ob­ser­va­tions on the ad­van­tage of mix­ing dif­fer­ent kinds on the same pas­ture. Swine and bees con­clude this branch of the work.

The au­thor then points out the great ad­van­tages of en­clo­sure; rec­om­mends “quy­ck­set­tyn­ge, dy­chyn­ge and hedgeyng”; and gives par­tic­ular di­rec­tions about settes, and the method of train­ing a hedge, as well as con­cern­ing the plant­ing and man­age­ment of trees. Fitzher­bert throws some light on the po­si­tion of wom­en in the agri­cul­ture of his day. “It is a wyues oc­cu­pa­tion,” he says, “to wynowe all man­er of cornes, to make malte, to washe and wryn­ge, to make heye, shere corne, and, in time of nede, to helpe her hus­bande to fyll the mucke wayne or dounge carte, dryue the ploughe, to loode heye, corne and suche oth­er; and to go or ride to the mar­ket to sel but­ter, chese, mylke, egges, chekyns, capons, hennes, pygges, gese, and all man­er of cornes.”

The Book of Sur­vey­ing adds con­sid­er­ably to our knowl­edge of the ru­ral econ­omy of that age. “Four man­er of com­mens” are de­scribed; sev­er­al kinds of mills for corn and oth­er pur­pos­es, and al­so “quernes that goo with hand”; dif­fer­ent or­ders of ten­ants, down to the “bound­men,” who “in some places con­tynue as yet”; “and many tymes, by colour there­of, there be many freemen tak­en as bound­men, and their lands and goods is tak­en from them.” Lime and marl are men­tioned as com­mon ma­nures, and the for­mer was some­times spread on the sur­face to de­stroy heath. Both drain­ing and ir­ri­ga­tion are no­ticed, though the lat­ter but slight­ly. And the work con­cludes with an in­quiry “how to make a town­ship that is worth XX. marke a yere, worth XX.li. a year,” ad­vo­cat­ing the tran­si­tion from com­mu­nal or open field to in­di­vid­ual or en­clo­sure farm­ing.

“It is un­doubt­ed, that to ev­ery town­shyppe that standeth in tyl­lage in the playne coun­trey, there be errable lan­des to plowe and sowe, and leyse to tye or ted­der theyr hors­es and mares up­on, and com­mon pas­ture to kepe and pas­ture their catell, beestes and shepe up­on; and al­so they have medowe grounde to get their hey up­on. Than to let it be known how many acres of errable lande eu­ery man hath in tyl­lage, and of the same acres in eu­ery felde to chaunge with his neygh­bours, and to leve them toguyther, and to make hym one seuer­all close in eu­ery felde for his errable lands; and his leyse in eu­ery felde to leve them to­gyther in one felde, and to make one seuer­all close for them all. And al­so an­oth­er seuer­all close for his por­tion of his com­mon pas­ture, and al­so his por­cion of his medowe in a seuer­all close by it­selfe, and al kept in seure­all both in wyn­ter and somer; and eu­ery cot­tage shall haue his por­tion as­signed hym ac­cor­dyn­ge to his rent, and than shall nat the ryche man ouer­presse the poore man with his cat­tell; and eu­ery man may eate his oun close at his plea­sure. And vn­doubt­ed, that hay and strawe that will find one beest in the house wyll finde two beestes in the close, and bet­ter they shall lyke. For those beestis in the house have short heare and thynne, and to­wards March they will pylle and be bare; and there­fore they may nat abyde in the fylde be­fore the heerd­men in win­ter­tyme for colde. And those that lye in a close un­der a hedge haue longe heare and thy­ck, and they will neuer pylle nor be bare: and by this rea­son the hus­bande maye keoe twyse so many catell as he did be­fore.

“This is the cause of this ap­prow­ment. Nowe eu­ery hus­bande hath sixe seuer­all clos­es, where­of iii. be for corne, the four­the for his leyse, the fyfte for his com­men pas­tures, and the sixte for his haye; and in wyn­ter time there is but one oc­cu­pied with corne, and than hath the hus­bande oth­er fyue to oc­cu­piy tyll lente come, and that he hath his falowe felde, his ley felde, and his pas­ture felde al som­mer. And when he hath mowen his medowe, then he hath his medowe grounde, soo that if he hath any weyke catell that wold be amend­ed, or dyvers man­er of catell, he may put them in any close he wyll, the which is a great ad­van­tage; and if all shulde lye com­men, than wolde the edy­che of the corne feldes and the af­ter­math of all the medowes be eat­en in X. or XII. dayes. And the rych men that hath moche catell wold have the ad­van­tage, and the poore man can have no help nor relefe in wyn­ter when he hath moste nede; and if an acre of lande be worthe sixe pens, or it be en­closed, it will be worth VI­II. pens, when it is en­closed by rea­son of the com­posty­ing and dong­yng of the catell that shall go and lye up­on it both day and nighte; and if any of his thre clos­es that he hath for his corne be worne or ware bare, than he may breke and plowe up his close that he hadde for his layse, or the close that he hadde for his com­men pas­ture, or bothe, and sowe them with corne, and let the oth­er lye for a time, and so shall he have al­ways reist grounde, the which will bear moche corne with ly­tel donge; and al­so he shall have a great pro­fyte of the wod in the hedges whan it is growen; and not on­ly these pro­fytes and ad­van­tages be­for­esaid, but he shall save moche more than al these, for by rea­son of these clos­es he shall save meate, drinke and wages of a shep­herde, the wages of the heerd­men, and the wages of the swine herde, the which may for­tune to be as charge­able as all his holle rente; and al­so his corne shall be bet­ter saved from eatinge or de­stroyeng with catel. For dout ye nat but heerde­men with their catell, shep­eherdes with their shepe, and tieng of hors­es and mares, de­stroyeth moch corne, the which the hedges wold save. Paraduen­ture some men would say that this shuld be against the com­mon weale, bi­cause the shep­eherdes, heerd­men and swyne-​herdes shuld than be put out of wages. To that it may be an­swered. though these oc­cu­pa­tions be not used, there be as many newe oc­cu­pa­tions that were not used be­fore; as get­ting of quicke settes. dich­ing, hedg­ing and plash­ing, the which the same men may use and oc­cu­pye.”

The next au­thor who writes pro­fess­ed­ly on agri­cul­ture is Thomas Tuss­er, whose Five Hun­dred Points of Hus­bandry, pub­lished in 1562, en­joyed such last­ing re­pute that in 1723 Lord Molesworth rec­om­mend­ed that it should be taught in schools. In it the book of hus­bandry con­sists of 118 pages, and then fol­lows the Point of House­wifrie, oc­cu­py­ing 42 pages more. It is writ­ten in verse. Amidst much that is val­ue­less there are some use­ful no­tices con­cern­ing the state of agri­cul­ture at the time in dif­fer­ent parts of Eng­land. Hops, which had been in­tro­duced in the ear­ly part of the 16th cen­tu­ry, and on the cul­ture of which a trea­tise was pub­lished in 1574 by Regi­nald Scott, are men­tioned as a well-​known crop. Buck­wheat was sown af­ter bar­ley. Hemp and flax are men­tioned as com­mon crops. En­clo­sures must have been nu­mer­ous in some coun­ties; and there is a very good com­par­ison be­tween “cham­pi­on (open fields) coun­try and sev­er­al,” which Blith af­ter­wards tran­scribed in­to his Im­prover Im­proved. Car­rots, cab­bages, turnips and rape, not yet cul­ti­vat­ed in the fields, are men­tioned among the herbs and roots for the kitchen. There is noth­ing to be found in Tuss­er about serfs or bond­men, as in Fitzher­bert’s works.

In 1577 ap­peared the Foure Bookes of Hus­bandry, trans­lat­ed, with aug­men­ta­tion, from the work of Con­rad Heres­bach. Much stress is laid on the val­ue of ma­nure, and men­tion is made of clover.

Fitzher­bert, in de­plor­ing the grad­ual dis­con­tin­uance of the prac­tice of mar­ling land, had al­lud­ed to the grievance fa­mil­iar in mod­ern times of ten­ants “who, if they should marl and make their hold­ings much bet­ter, fear lest they should be put out, or make a great fine or else pay more rent.” This sub­ject is treat­ed at length in Sir John Nor­den’s Sur­vey­or’s Di­alogue (1st ed. 1607), the next agri­cul­tur­al work de­mand­ing no­tice. The au­thor, writ­ing from the landown­er’s point of view, as­cribes the rise in rents and the rise in the price of corn4 to the “em­ula­tion” of ten­ants in com­pet­ing for hold­ings, a prac­tice im­ply­ing that the agri­cul­ture of the pe­ri­od was pros­per­ous. Nor­den’s work con­tains many ju­di­cious ob­ser­va­tions on the “dif­fer­ent na­tures of grounds, how they may be em­ployed, how they may be bet­tered, re­formed and amend­ed.” The fa­mous mead­ows near Sal­is­bury are men­tioned, where, when cat­tle have fed their fill, hogs, it is said, “are made fat with the rem­nant–name­ly, with the knots and sappe of the grasse.” “Clouer grasse, or the grasse hon­ey suck­le” (white clover), is di­rect­ed to be sown with oth­er hay seeds. “Car­rot rootes” were then raised in sev­er­al parts of Eng­land, and some­times by farm­ers. Lon­don street and sta­ble dung was car­ried to a dis­tance by wa­ter, and ap­pears from lat­er writ­ers to have been got for the trou­ble of re­mov­ing. Leas­es of 21 years are rec­om­mend­ed for per­sons of small cap­ital as bet­ter than em­ploy­ing it in pur­chas­ing land. The works of Ger­vase Markham, Leonard Mas­call, Gabriel Plat­tes and oth­er au­thors of the first half of the 17th cen­tu­ry may be passed over, the best part of them be­ing pre­served by Blith and Hartlib, who are re­ferred to be­low.

Sir Richard We­st­on’s Dis­course on the Hus­bandry of Bra­bant and Flan­ders was pub­lished by Hartlib in 1645, and its ti­tle in­di­cates the source to which Eng­land owed much of its sub­se­quent agri­cul­tur­al ad­vance­ment. We­st­on was am­bas­sador from Eng­land to the elec­tor pala­tine in 1619, and had the mer­it of be­ing the first who in­tro­duced the Great Clover, as it was then called, in­to En­glish agri­cul­ture, about 1652, and prob­ably turnips al­so. Clover thrives best, he says, when you sow it on the bar­ren­est ground, such as the worst heath ground in Eng­land. The ground is to be pared and burnt, and un­slacked lime must be added to the ash­es. It is next to be well ploughed and har­rowed; and about 10 lb. of clover seed must be sown on an acre in April or the end of March. If you in­tend to pre­serve seed, then the sec­ond crop must be let stand till it come to a full and dead ripeness, and you shall have at the least five bushels per acre. Be­ing once sown, it will last five years; the land, when ploughed, will yield, three or four years to­geth­er, rich crops of wheat, and af­ter that a crop of oats, with which clover seed is to be sown again. It is in it­self an ex­cel­lent ma­nure, Sir Richard adds; and so it should be, to en­able land to bear this treat­ment. Be­fore 1655 the cul­ture of clover, ex­act­ly ac­cord­ing to the present method, seems to have been well known in Eng­land, and it had al­so made its way to Ire­land.

A great many works on agri­cul­ture ap­peared dur­ing the time of the Com­mon­wealth, of which Wal­ter Blith’s Im­prover Im­proved and Samuel Hartlib’s Lega­cie are the most valu­able. The first edi­tion of the for­mer was pub­lished in 1649, and of the lat­ter in 1651; and both of them were en­larged in sub­se­quent edi­tions. In the first edi­tion of the Im­prover Im­proved no men­tion is made of clover, nor in the sec­ond of turnips, but in the third, clover is treat­ed of at some length, and turnips are rec­om­mend­ed as an ex­cel­lent cat­tle crop, the cul­ture of which should be ex­tend­ed from the kitchen gar­den to the field. Sir Richard We­st­on must have cul­ti­vat­ed turnips be­fore this; for Blith says that Sir Richard af­firmed to him­self that he fed his swine with them. They were first giv­en boiled, but af­ter­wards the swine came to eat them raw, and would run af­ter the carts, and pull them forth as they gath­ered them–an ex­pres­sion which con­veys an idea of their be­ing cul­ti­vat­ed in the fields.

Blith’s book is the first sys­tem­at­ic work in which there are some traces of al­ter­nate hus­bandry or the prac­tice of in­ter­pos­ing clover and turnip be­tween cul­mif­er­ous crops. He is a great en­emy to com­mons and com­mon fields, and to re­tain­ing land in old pas­ture, un­less it be of the best qual­ity. His de­scrip­tion of the dif­fer­ent kinds of ploughs is in­ter­est­ing; and he just­ly rec­om­mends such as were drawn by two hors­es (some even by one horse) in pref­er­ence to the weighty and clum­sy ma­chines which re­quired four or more hors­es or ox­en. The fol­low­ing pas­sage in­di­cates the con­tem­po­rary the­ory of ma­nur­ing:—“In thy tillage are these spe­cial op­por­tu­ni­ties to im­prove it, ei­ther by lim­ing, mar­ling, sand­ing, earth­ing, mud­ding, snayl-​cod­ding, muck­ing, chalk­ing, pid­geons-​dung, hens-​dung, hogs-​dung or by any oth­er means as some by rags, some by coarse wool, by pitch marks, and tar­ry stuff, any oy­ly stuff, salt and many things more, yea in­deed any thing al­most that hath any liq­uid­ness, foul­ness, salt­ness or good moys­ture in it, is very nat­urall in­rich­ment to al­most any sort of land.” Blith speaks of an in­stru­ment which ploughed, sowed and har­rowed at the same time; and the set­ting of corn was then a sub­ject of much dis­cus­sion. Blith was a zeal­ous ad­vo­cate of drainage and holds that drains to be ef­fi­cient must be laid 3 or 4 ft. deep. The drainage of the Great Lev­el of the Fens was pros­ecut­ed dur­ing the 17th cen­tu­ry, but lack of en­gi­neer­ing skill and the op­po­si­tion of the fen-​men hin­dered the recla­ma­tion of a now fer­tile re­gion.

Hartlib’s Lega­cie con­tains, among some very ju­di­cious di­rec­tions, a great deal of rash spec­ula­tion. Sev­er­al of the de­fi­cien­cies which the writ­er com­plains of in En­glish agri­cul­ture must be placed to the ac­count of cli­mate, and nev­er have been or can be sup­plied. Some of his rec­om­men­da­tions are quite un­suit­able to the state of the coun­try, and dis­play more of gen­er­al knowl­edge and good in­ten­tion than of ei­ther the the­ory or prac­tice of agri­cul­ture. Among the sub­jects de­serv­ing no­tice may be men­tioned the prac­tice of steep­ing and lim­ing seed corn as a pre­ven­tive of smut; chang­ing ev­ery year the Species of grain, and bring­ing seed corn from a dis­tance; plough­ing down green crops as ma­nure; and feed­ing hors­es with bro­ken oats and chaff. This writ­er seems to dif­fer a good deal from Blith about the ad­van­tage of in­ter­chang­ing tillage and pas­ture. “It were no losse to this is­land,” he says, “if that we should not plough at all, if so be that we could cer­tain­ly have corn at a rea­son­able rate, and like­wise vent for all our man­ufac­tures of wool”; and one rea­son for this is, that pas­ture em­ploys more hands than tillage, in­stead of de­pop­ulat­ing the coun­try, as was com­mon­ly imag­ined. The Grout, which he men­tions as “com­ing over to us in Hol­land ships,” about which he de­sires in­for­ma­tion, was prob­ably the same as shelled bar­ley; and mills for man­ufac­tur­ing it were in­tro­duced in­to Scot­land from Hol­land to­wards the be­gin­ning of the 18th cen­tu­ry.

Among the oth­er writ­ers pre­vi­ous to the Rev­olu­tion men­tion must be made of John Ray the botanist and of John Eve­lyn, both men of great tal­ent and re­search, whose works are still in high es­ti­ma­tion.

The first half of the 17th cen­tu­ry was a pe­ri­od of agri­cul­tur­al ac­tiv­ity, part­ly due, no doubt, to the in­crease of en­closed farms. Mar­ling and lim­ing are again prac­tised, new agri­cul­tur­al im­ple­ments and ma­nures in­tro­duced, and the new crops more wide­ly used. But the Civ­il War and the sub­se­quent po­lit­icald­is­tur­bances in­ter­vened to pre­vent the con­tin­uance of this progress, and the agri­cul­ture of the end of the cen­tu­ry seems to have re­lapsed in­to stag­na­tion.

Scot­tish agri­cul­ture of the 17th cen­tu­ry.

Of the state of agri­cul­ture in Scot­land in the 16th and the greater part of the 17th cen­tu­ry very lit­tle is known; no pro­fessed trea­tise on the sub­ject ap­peared till af­ter the Rev­olu­tion. The south-​east­ern coun­ties were the ear­li­est im­proved, and yet in 1660 their con­di­tion seems to have been very wretched. Ray, who made a tour along the east­ern coast in that year, says, “We ob­served lit­tle or no fal­low ground in Scot­land; some ley ground we saw, which they ma­nured with sea wreck. The men seemed to be very lazy, and may be fre­quent­ly ob­served to plough in their cloaks. It is the fash­ion of them to wear cloaks when they go abroad, but es­pe­cial­ly on Sun­days. They have nei­ther good bread, cheese nor drink. They can­not make them, nor will they learn. Their but­ter is very in­dif­fer­ent, and one would won­der how they could con­trive to make it so bad. They use much pot­tage made of coal-​wort, which they call kail, some­times broth of decor­ti­cat­ed bar­ley. The or­di­nary coun­try-​hous­es are piti­ful cots, built of stone and cov­ered with turfs, hav­ing in them but one room, many of them no chim­neys, the win­dows very small holes and not glazed. The ground in the val­leys and plains bear very good corn, but es­pe­cial­ly bears bar­ley or bigge, and oats, but rarely wheat and rye.”

It is prob­able that no great change had tak­en place in Scot­land from the end of the 15th cen­tu­ry, ex­cept that ten­ants grad­ual­ly be­came pos­sessed of a lit­tle stock of their own, in­stead of hav­ing their farm stocked by the land­lord. “The mi­nor­ity of James V., the reign of Mary Stu­art, the in­fan­cy of her son, and the civ­il wars of her grand­son Charles I., were all pe­ri­ods of last­ing waste. The very laws which were made dur­ing suc­ces­sive reigns for pro­tect­ing the tillers of the soil from spoil are the best proofs of the de­plorable state of the hus­band­man.”5

In the 17th cen­tu­ry those laws were made which paved the way for an im­proved sys­tem of agri­cul­ture in Scot­land. By a statute of 1633 land­hold­ers were en­abled to have their tithes val­ued, and to buy them ei­ther at nine or six years’ pur­chase, ac­cord­ing to the na­ture of the prop­er­ty. The statute of 1685, con­fer­ring on land­lords a pow­er to en­tail their es­tates, was in­deed of a very dif­fer­ent ten­den­cy in re­gard to its ef­fects on agri­cul­ture. But the two Acts in 1695, for the di­vi­sion of com­mons and sep­ara­tion of in­ter­mixed prop­er­ties, fa­cil­itat­ed im­prove­ments.

Progress of agri­cul­ture from 1688 to 1760.

From the Rev­olu­tion to the ac­ces­sion of George III. the progress of agri­cul­ture was by no means so con­sid­er­able as might be imag­ined from the great ex­por­ta­tion of corn. It is prob­able that very lit­tle im­prove­ment had tak­en place, ei­ther in the cul­ti­va­tion of the soil or in the man­age­ment of live stock, from the Restora­tion down to the mid­dle of the 18th cen­tu­ry. Clover and turnips were con­fined to a few dis­tricts, and at the lat­ter pe­ri­od were scarce­ly cul­ti­vat­ed at all by com­mon farm­ers in the north­ern part of the is­land. Of the writ­ers of this pe­ri­od, there­fore, it is nec­es­sary to no­tice on­ly such as de­scribe some im­prove­ment in the modes of cul­ture, or some ex­ten­sion of the prac­tices that were for­mer­ly lit­tle known.

In John Houghton’s Col­lec­tions on Hus­bandry and Trade, a pe­ri­od­ical work be­gun in 1681, there is one of the ear­li­est no­tices of turnips be­ing eat­en by sheep:—-“Some in Es­sex have their fal­low af­ter turnips, which feed their sheep in win­ter, by which means the turnips are scooped, and so made ca­pa­ble to hold dews and rain wa­ter, which, by cor­rupt­ing, im­bibes the ni­tre of the air, and when the shell breaks it runs about and fer­til­izes. By feed­ing the sheep, the land is dunged as if it had been fold­ed; and those turnips, though few or none be car­ried off for hu­man use, are a very ex­cel­lent im­prove­ment, nay, some reck­on it so, though they on­ly plough the turnips in with­out feed­ing.” This was writ­ten in Febru­ary 1694. Ten years be­fore, John Wor­lidge, one of his cor­re­spon­dents, and the au­thor of the Sys­tema Agri­cul­tur­ae (1669), ob­serves, “Sheep fat­ten very well on turnips, which prove an ex­cel­lent nour­ish­ment for them in hard win­ters when fod­der is scarce; for they will not on­ly eat the greens, but feed on the roots in the ground, and scoop them hol­low even to the very skin. Ten acres (he adds) sown with clover, turnips, &c., will feed as many sheep as one hun­dred acres there­of would be­fore have done.”

The next writ­er of note is John Mor­timer, whose Whole Art of Hus­bandry, a reg­ular, sys­tem­at­ic work of con­sid­er­able mer­it, was pub­lished in 1707.

From the third edi­tion of Hartlib’s Lega­cie we learn that clover was cut green and giv­en to cat­tle; and it ap­pears that this prac­tice of soil­ing, as it is now called, had be­come very com­mon about the be­gin­ning of the 18th cen­tu­ry, wher­ev­er clover was cul­ti­vat­ed. Rye-​grass was now sown along with it. Turnips were hand-​hoed and ex­ten­sive­ly em­ployed in feed­ing sheep and cat­tle.

The first con­sid­er­able im­prove­ment in the prac­tice of that pe­ri­od was in­tro­duced by Jethro Tull, a gen­tle­man of Berk­shire, who about the year 1701 in­vent­ed the drill, and whose Horse-​hoe­ing Hus­bandry, pub­lished in 1731, ex­hibits the first de­cid­ed step in ad­vance up­on the prin­ci­ples and prac­tices of his pre­de­ces­sors. Not con­tent­ed with a care­ful at­ten­tion to de­tails, Tull set him­self, with ad­mirable skill and per­se­ver­ance, to in­ves­ti­gate the growth of plants, and thus to ar­rive at a knowl­edge of the prin­ci­ples by which the cul­ti­va­tion of field-​crops should be reg­ulat­ed. Hav­ing ar­rived at the con­clu­sion that the food of plants con­sists of minute par­ti­cles of earth tak­en up by their rootlets, it fol­lowed that the more thor­ough­ly the soil in which they grew was dis­in­te­grat­ed, the more abun­dant would be the “pas­ture” (as he called it) to which their fi­bres would have ac­cess. He was thus led to adopt that sys­tem of sow­ing his crops in rows or drills, so wide apart as to ad­mit of tillage of the in­ter­vals, both by plough­ing and hoe­ing, be­ing con­tin­ued un­til they had well-​nigh ar­rived at ma­tu­ri­ty. Such re­liance did he place in the pul­ver­iza­tion of the soil that he grew as many as thir­teen crops of wheat on the same field with­out ma­nure.

As the dis­tance be­tween his rows ap­peared much greater than was nec­es­sary for the range of the roots of the plants, he be­gins by show­ing that these roots ex­tend much far­ther than is com­mon­ly be­lieved, and then pro­ceeds to in­quire in­to the na­ture of their food. Af­ter ex­am­in­ing sev­er­al hy­pothe­ses, he de­cides this to be fine par­ti­cles of earth. The chief and al­most the on­ly use of dung, he thinks, is to di­vide the earth, to dis­solve “this ter­res­tri­al mat­ter, which af­fords nu­tri­ment to the mouths of veg­etable roots”; and this can be done more com­plete­ly by tillage. It is there­fore nec­es­sary not on­ly to pul­ver­ize the soil by re­peat­ed plough­ings be­fore it be seed­ed, but, as it be­comes grad­ual­ly more and more com­pressed af­ter­wards, re­course must be had to tillage while the plants are grow­ing; and this is hoe­ing, which al­so de­stroys the weeds that would de­prive the plants of their nour­ish­ment.

The lead­ing fea­tures of Tull’s hus­bandry are his prac­tice of lay­ing the land in­to nar­row ridges of 5 or 6 ft., and up­on the mid­dle of these drilling one, two, or three rows, dis­tant from one an­oth­er about 7 in. when there were three, and 10 in. when on­ly two. The dis­tance of the plants on one ridge from those on the con­tigu­ous one he called an in­ter­val; the dis­tance be­tween the rows on the same ridge, a space or par­ti­tion; the for­mer was stirred re­peat­ed­ly by the horse-​hoe, the lat­ter by the hand-​hoe.

“Hoe­ing,” he says, “may be di­vid­ed in­to deep, which is our horse-​hoe­ing; and shal­low, which is the En­glish hand-​hoe­ing; and al­so the shal­low horse-​hoe­ing used in some places be­twixt rows, where the in­ter­vals are very nar­row, as 16 or 18 inch­es. This is but an im­ita­tion of the hand-​hoe, or a suc­ce­nadeum to it, and can nei­ther sup­ply the use of dung nor fal­low, and may be prop­er­ly called scratch-​hoe­ing.” But in his mode of form­ing ridges his prac­tice seems to have been orig­inal; his im­ple­ments, es­pe­cial­ly his drill, dis­play much in­ge­nu­ity; and his claim to the ti­tle of founder of the present horse-​hoe­ing hus­bandry of Great Britain seems in­dis­putable.

Con­tem­po­rary with Tull was Charles, 2nd Vis­count Town­shend, a typ­ical rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the large landown­ers to whom the strides made by agri­cul­ture in the 18th cen­tu­ry were due. The class to which he be­longed was the on­ly one which could af­ford to ini­ti­ate im­prove­ments. The bulk of the land was still farmed by small ten­ants on the old com­mon-​field sys­tem, which made it im­pos­si­ble for the in­di­vid­ual to adopt a new crop ro­ta­tion and hin­dered in­no­va­tion of ev­ery kind. On the oth­er hand, the small farm­ers who oc­cu­pied sep­arat­ed hold­ings were de­terred from im­prov­ing by the fear of a rise in rent. Town­shend’s be­lief in the grow­ing of turnips gained him the nick­name of “Turnip Town­shend.” In their cul­ti­va­tion he adopt­ed Tull’s prac­tice of drilling and horse-​hoe­ing, and he was al­so the founder of the Nor­folk or four-​course sys­tem, the first of those ro­ta­tions which dis­pense with the ne­ces­si­ty of a sum­mer-​fal­low and pro­vide win­ter-​keep for live-​stock (see be­low, Ro­ta­tion of Crops). The spread of these prin­ci­ples in Nor­folk made it, ac­cord­ing to Arthur Young (writ­ing in 1770), one of the best cul­ti­vat­ed coun­ties in Eng­land. In the lat­ter half of the cen­tu­ry an­oth­er Nor­folk farmer, Thomas William Coke of Holkham, earl of Le­ices­ter, (1752-1842), fig­ures as a pi­oneer of high-​farm­ing. He was one of the first to use oil-​cake and bone-​ma­nure, to dis­tin­guish the feed­ing val­ues of grass­es, to ap­pre­ci­ate to the full the ben­efi­cial ef­fects of stock on light lands and to re­al­ize the val­ue of long leas­es as an in­cen­tive to good farm­ing.

Agri­cul­ture in Scot­land in the 18th cen­tu­ry.

Of the progress of the art in Scot­land, till to­wards the end of the 17th cen­tu­ry, we are al­most en­tire­ly ig­no­rant. The first work, writ­ten by James Don­ald­son, was print­ed in 1697, un­der the ti­tle of Hus­bandry Anat­omized; or, In­quiry in­to the Present Man­ner of Till­ing and Ma­nur­ing the Ground in Scot­land. It ap­pears from this trea­tise that the state of the art was not more ad­vanced at that time in North Britain than it had been in Eng­land in the time of Fitzher­bert. Farms were di­vid­ed in­to in­field and out­field; corn crops fol­lowed one an­oth­er with­out the in­ter­ven­tion of fal­low, cul­ti­vat­ed herbage or turnips, though some­thing is said about fal­low­ing the out­field; en­clo­sures were very rare; the ten­antry had not be­gun to emerge from a state of great pover­ty and de­pres­sion; and the wages of labour, com­pared with the price of corn, were much low­er than at present, though that price, at least in or­di­nary years, must ap­pear ex­treme­ly mod­er­ate in our times. Leas­es for a term of years, how­ev­er, were not un­com­mon; but the want of cap­ital ren­dered it im­pos­si­ble for the ten­antry to at­tempt any spir­it­ed im­prove­ments.

The next work on the hus­bandry of Scot­land is The Coun­try­man’s Rudi­ments, or Ad­vice to the Farm­ers in East Loth­ian, how to labour and im­prove their Grounds, said to have been writ­ten by John Hamil­ton, 2nd Lord Bel­haven about the time of the Union, and reprint­ed in 1723. The au­thor be­speaks the favour of those to whom he ad­dress­es him­self in the fol­low­ing sig­nif­icant terms:—“Nei­ther shall I af­fright you with hedg­ing, ditch­ing, mar­ling, chalk­ing, par­ing and burn­ing, drain­ing, wa­ter­ing and such like, which are all very good im­prove­ments in­deed, and very agree­able with the soil and sit­ua­tion of East Loth­ian, but I know ye can­not bear as yet a crowd of im­prove­ments, this be­ing on­ly in­tend­ed to ini­ti­ate you in the true method and prin­ci­ples of hus­bandry.” The farm-​rooms in East Loth­ian, as in oth­er dis­tricts, were di­vid­ed in­to in­field and out­field.

“The in­field (where wheat is sown) is gen­er­al­ly di­vid­ed by the ten­ant in­to four di­vi­sions or breaks, as they call them, viz. one of wheat, one of bar­ley, one of pease and one of oats, so that the wheat is sowd af­ter the pease, the bar­ley af­ter the wheat and the oats af­ter the bar­ley. The out­field land is or­di­nar­ily made use of promis­cu­ous­ly for feed­ing of their cows, horse, sheep and ox­en; ’tis al­so dunged by their sheep who lay in earth­en folds; and some­times, when they have much of it, they fauch or fal­low a part of it year­ly.”

Un­der this man­age­ment the pro­duce seems to have been three times the seed; and yet, says the writ­er, “if in East Loth­ian they did not leave a high­er stub­ble than in oth­er places of the king­dom, their grounds would be in a much worse con­di­tion than at present they are, though bad enough.” “A good crop of corn makes a good stub­ble, and a good stub­ble is the equalest muck­ing that is.” Among the ad­van­tages of en­clo­sures, he ob­serves, “you will gain much more labour from your ser­vants, a great part of whose time was tak­en up in gath­er­ing this­tles and oth­er garbage for their hors­es to feed up­on in their sta­bles; and there­by the great tram­pling and pulling up and oth­er de­struc­tion of the corns while they are yet ten­der will be pre­vent­ed.” Pota­toes and turnips are rec­om­mend­ed to be sown in the yard (kitchen-​gar­den). Clover does not seem to have been in use. Rents were paid in corn; and for the largest farm, which he thinks should em­ploy no more than two ploughs, the rent was about six chalders of vict­ual “when the ground is very good, and four in that which is not so good. But I am most ful­ly con­vinced they should take long leas­es or tacks, that they may not be strait­ened with time in the im­prove­ment of their rooms; and this is prof­itable both for mas­ter and ten­ant.”

Such was the state of the hus­bandry of Scot­land in the ear­ly part of the 18th cen­tu­ry. The first at­tempts at im­prove­ment can­not be traced far­ther back than 1723, when a num­ber of land­hold­ers formed them­selves in­to a so­ci­ety, un­der the ti­tle of the So­ci­ety of Im­provers in the Knowl­edge of Agri­cul­ture in Scot­land. John, 2nd earl of Stair, one of their most ac­tive mem­bers, is said to have been the first who cul­ti­vat­ed turnips in that coun­try. The Se­lect Trans­ac­tions of this so­ci­ety were col­lect­ed and pub­lished in 1743 by Robert Maxwell, who took a large part in its pro­ceed­ings. It is ev­ident from this book that the so­ci­ety had ex­ert­ed it­self with suc­cess in in­tro­duc­ing cul­ti­vat­ed herbage and turnips, as well as in im­prov­ing the for­mer meth­ods of cul­ture. But there is rea­son to be­lieve that the in­flu­ence of the ex­am­ple of its nu­mer­ous mem­bers did not ex­tend to the com­mon ten­antry, who not un­nat­ural­ly were re­luc­tant to adopt the prac­tices of those by whom farm­ing was per­haps re­gard­ed as pri­mar­ily a source of plea­sure rather than of prof­it. Though this so­ci­ety, the ear­li­est prob­ably in the Unit­ed King­dom, soon count­ed up­wards of 300 mem­bers, it ex­ist­ed lit­tle more than 20 years.

In the in­tro­duc­to­ry pa­per in Maxwell’s col­lec­tion we are told that–

“The prac­tice of drain­ing, en­clos­ing, sum­mer fal­low­ing, sow­ing flax, hemp, rape, turnip and grass seeds, plant­ing cab­bages af­ter, and pota­toes with, the plough, in fields of great ex­tent, is in­tro­duced; and that, ac­cord­ing to the gen­er­al opin­ion, more corn grows now year­ly where it was nev­er known to grow be­fore, these twen­ty years last past, than per­haps a sixth of all that the king­dom was in use to pro­duce at any time be­fore.”

In 1757 Maxwell is­sued an­oth­er work en­ti­tled The Prac­ti­cal Hus­band­man; be­ing a col­lec­tion of mis­cel­la­neous pa­pers on Hus­bandry, &c. In it the greater part of the Se­lect Trans­ac­tions is re­pub­lished, with a num­ber of new pa­pers, among which an Es­say on the Hus­bandry of Scot­land, with a pro­pos­al for the im­prove­ment of it, is the most valu­able. In this he lays it down as a rule that it is bad hus­bandry to take two crops of grain suc­ces­sive­ly, which marks a con­sid­er­able progress in the knowl­edge of mod­ern hus­bandry; though he adds that in Scot­land the best hus­band­men af­ter a fal­low take a crop of wheat; af­ter the wheat, peas; then bar­ley, and then oats; and af­ter that they fal­low again. The want of en­clo­sures was still a mat­ter of com­plaint. The ground con­tin­ued to be cropped so long as it pro­duced two seeds; the best farm­ers were con­tent­ed with four seeds, which was more than the gen­er­al pro­duce.

1760 to 1815.

The grad­ual ad­vance in the price of farm pro­duce soon af­ter the year 1760, oc­ca­sioned by the in­crease of pop­ula­tion and of wealth de­rived from man­ufac­tures and com­merce, gave a pow­er­ful stim­ulus to ru­ral in­dus­try, aug­ment­ed agri­cul­tur­al cap­ital and called forth a more skil­ful and en­ter­pris­ing race of farm­ers.

A more ra­tio­nal sys­tem of crop­ping now be­gan to take the place of the thrift­less and bar­barous prac­tice of sow­ing suc­ces­sive crops of corn un­til the land was ut­ter­ly ex­haust­ed, and then leav­ing it foul with weeds to re­cov­er its pover by an in­def­inite pe­ri­od of rest. Green crops, such as turnips, clover and rye. grass, be­gan to be al­ter­nat­ed with grain crops, whence the name al­ter­nate hus­bandry.

The writ­ings of Arthur Young (q.v.), sec­re­tary to the Board of Agri­cul­ture, de­scribe the tran­si­tion from the old to the new agri­cul­ture. In many places turnips and clover were still un­known or ig­nored. Large dis­tricts still clung to the old com­mon-​field sys­tem, to the old habits of plough­ing with teams of four or eight, and to sloven­ly meth­ods of cul­ti­va­tion. Young’s con­dem­na­tion of these sur­vivals was as pro­nounced as his sup­port of the meth­ods of the large farm­ers to whom he as­cribed the ex­cel­lence of the hus­bandry of Kent, Nor­folk and Es­sex. He re­al­ized that with the en­clo­sure of the waste lands and the ab­sorp­tion of small in­to large hold­ings, the com­mon-​field farmer must mi­grate to the town or be­come a hired labour­er; but he al­so re­al­ized that to feed a rapid­ly grow­ing in­dus­tri­al pop­ula­tion, the land must be im­proved by drain­ing, mar­ling, ma­nur­ing and the use of bet­ter im­ple­ments, in short by the in­vest­ment of the cap­ital which the yeo­man farmer, con­tent to feed him­self and his own fam­ily, did not pos­sess. The en­large­ment of farms, and in Scot­land the let­ting of them un­der leas­es for a con­sid­er­able term of years, con­tin­ued to be a marked fea­ture in the agri­cul­tur­al progress of the coun­try un­til the end of the cen­tu­ry, and is to be re­gard­ed both as a cause and a con­se­quence of that progress. The pass­ing of some 3500 en­clo­sure bills, af­fect­ing be­tween 5 and 5 1/2 mil­lion acres, dur­ing the reign of George III., be­fore which the whole num­ber was be­tween 200 and 250, shows how rapid­ly the break-​up of the com­mon-​field hus­bandry and the cul­ti­va­tion of new land now pro­ceed­ed. The dis­as­trous Amer­ican War for a time in­ter­fered with the na­tion­al pros­per­ity; but with the re­turn of peace in 1783 the cul­ti­va­tion of the coun­try made more rapid progress. The quar­ter of a cen­tu­ry im­me­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing 1760 is mem­orable for the in­tro­duc­tion of var­ious im­por­tant im­prove­ments. It was dur­ing this pe­ri­od that the ge­nius of Robert Bakewell pro­duced an ex­traor­di­nary change in the char­ac­ter of our more im­por­tant breeds of live stock, more es­pe­cial­ly by the per­fect­ing of a new race of sheep–the well-​known Le­ices­ters. Bakewell’s fame as a breed­er was for a time en­hanced by the im­prove­ment which he ef­fect­ed on the Long-​horned cat­tle, then the pre­vail­ing breed of the mid­land coun­ties of Eng­land. These, how­ev­er, were ere long ri­valled and af­ter­wards su­per­seded by the Short­horn or Durham breed, which the broth­ers Charles and Robert Colling ob­tained from the use­ful race of cat­tle that had long ex­ist­ed in the val­ley of the Tees, by ap­ply­ing to them the prin­ci­ple of breed­ing which Bakewell had al­ready es­tab­lished. To this pe­ri­od al­so be­long George and Matthew Cul­ley–the for­mer a pupil of Bakewell– who left their pa­ter­nal prop­er­ty on the bank of the Tees and set­tled on the Northum­bri­an side of the Tweed, bring­ing with them the valu­able breeds of live stock and im­proved hus­bandry of their na­tive dis­trict. The im­prove­ments in­tro­duced by these en­er­get­ic and skil­ful farm­ers spread rapid­ly, and ex­ert­ed a most ben­efi­cial in­flu­ence up­on the bor­der coun­ties.

From 1784 to 1795 im­prove­ments ad­vanced with steady steps. This pe­ri­od was dis­tin­guished for the adop­tion and work­ing out of as­cer­tained im­prove­ments. Small’s swing plough and An­drew Meik­le’s thresh­ing-​ma­chine, al­though in­vent­ed some years be­fore this, were now per­fect­ed and brought in­to gen­er­al use, to the great fur­ther­ance of agri­cul­ture. Two im­por­tant ad­di­tions were about this time made to the field crops, viz. the Swedish turnip and pota­to oat. The lat­ter was ac­ci­den­tal­ly dis­cov­ered in 1788, and both soon came in­to gen­er­al cul­ti­va­tion. In the same year Meri­no sheep were in­tro­duced by George III., who was a zeal­ous farmer. For a time this breed at­tract­ed much at­ten­tion, and san­guine ex­pec­ta­tions were en­ter­tained that it would prove of na­tion­al im­por­tance. Its un­fit­ness for the pro­duc­tion of mut­ton, and in­creas­ing sup­plies of fine cloth­ing wool from oth­er coun­tries, soon led to its to­tal re­jec­tion.

In Scot­land the open­ing up of the coun­try by the con­struc­tion of prac­ti­ca­ble roads, and the en­clos­ing and sub­di­vid­ing of farms by hedge and ditch, was now in ac­tive progress. The for­mer ad­mit­ted of the gen­er­al use of wheel-​car­riages, of the ready con­veyance of pro­duce to mar­kets, and in par­tic­ular of the ex­tend­ed use of lime, the ap­pli­ca­tion of which was im­me­di­ate­ly fol­lowed by a great in­crease of pro­duce. The lat­ter, be­sides its more ob­vi­ous ad­van­tages, speed­ily freed large tracts of coun­try from stag­nant wa­ter and their in­hab­itants from ague, and pre­pared the way for the un­der­ground drain­ing which soon af­ter be­gan to be prac­tised. Daw­son of Frog­den in Rox­burghshire is be­lieved to have been the first who grew turnips as a field crop to any ex­tent. It is on record that as ear­ly as 1764 he had 100 acres of drilled turnips on his farm in one year. An Act passed in 1770, which re­laxed the rigour of strict en­tails and af­ford­ed pow­er to land­lords to grant leas­es and oth­er­wise im­prove their es­tates, had a ben­efi­cial ef­fect on Scot­tish agri­cul­ture.

The hus­bandry of the coun­try was thus steadi­ly im­prov­ing, when sud­den­ly the whole of Eu­rope be­came in­volved in the wars of the French Rev­olu­tion. In 1795, un­der the joint op­er­ation of a de­fi­cient har­vest and the diminu­tion in for­eign sup­plies of grain ow­ing to out­break of war, the price of wheat, which, for the twen­ty pre­ced­ing years, had been un­der 50s. a quar­ter, sud­den­ly rose to 81s. 6d., and in the fol­low­ing year reached 96s. In 1797 the fear of for­eign in­va­sion led to a pan­ic and run up­on the banks, in which emer­gen­cy the Bank Re­stric­tion Act, sus­pend­ing cash pay­ment, was passed, and ush­ered in a sys­tem of un­lim­it­ed cred­it trans­ac­tions. Un­der the un­nat­ural stim­ulus of these ex­tra-​or­di­nary events, ev­ery branch of in­dus­try ex­tend­ed with un­ex­am­pled ra­pid­ity. But in noth­ing was this so ap­par­ent as in agri­cul­ture; the high prices of pro­duce hold­ing out a great in­duce­ment to im­prove lands then arable, to re­claim oth­ers that had pre­vi­ous­ly lain waste, and to bring much pas­ture-​land un­der the plough. Nor did this in­creased tillage in­ter­fere with the in­crease of live stock, as the green crops of the al­ter­nate hus­bandry more than com­pen­sat­ed for the di­min­ished pas­turage. This ex­traor­di­nary state of mat­ters last­ed from 1795 to 1814, the prices of pro­duce even in­creas­ing to­wards the close of that pe­ri­od. The av­er­age price of wheat for the whole pe­ri­od was 89s. 7d. per quar­ter; but for the last five years it was 107s., and in 1812 it reached 126s. 6d. The agri­cul­ture of Great Britain, as a whole, ad­vanced with rapid strides dur­ing this pe­ri­od; but nowhere was the change so great as in Scot­land. In­deed, its progress there, dur­ing these twen­ty years, is prob­ably with­out par­al­lel in the his­to­ry of any oth­er coun­try. This is ac­count­ed for by a con­cur­rence of cir­cum­stances. Pre­vi­ous to this pe­ri­od the hus­bandry of Scot­land was still in a back­ward state as com­pared with the best dis­tricts of Eng­land, where many prac­tices, on­ly of re­cent in­tro­duc­tion in the north, had been in gen­er­al use for gen­er­ations. This dis­par­ity made the sub­se­quent con­trast the more strik­ing. The land in Scot­land was now, with tri­fling ex­cep­tions, let on leas­es for terms vary­ing from twen­ty to thir­ty years, and in farms of suf­fi­cient size to em­ploy at the least two or three ploughs. The un­lim­it­ed is­sues of gov­ern­ment pa­per and the se­cu­ri­ty af­ford­ed by these leas­es in­duced the Scot­tish banks to af­ford ev­ery fa­cil­ity to land­lords and ten­ants to em­bark cap­ital in the im­prove­ment of the land. The sub­stan­tial ed­uca­tion sup­plied by the parish schools, of which near­ly the whole pop­ula­tion could then avail them­selves, had dif­fused through all ranks such a mea­sure of in­tel­li­gence as en­abled them prompt­ly to dhscern and skil­ful­ly and en­er­get­ical­ly to take ad­van­tage of this spring-​tide of pros­per­ity, and to prof­it by the agri­cul­tur­al in­for­ma­tion now plen­ti­ful­ly fur­nished by means of the Bath and West of Eng­land So­ci­ety, es­tab­lished in 1777; the High­land So­ci­ety, in­sti­tut­ed in 1784; and the Na­tion­al Board of Agri­cul­ture, in 1793.

1815 to 1875.

The restora­tion of peace to Eu­rope, and the re-​en­act­ment of the Corn Laws in 1815, mark the be­gin­ning of an­oth­er era in the his­to­ry of agri­cul­ture. The sud­den re­turn to peace-​prices was fol­lowed by a time of se­vere de­pres­sion, low wages, di­min­ished rents and bad farm­ing. The fall in prices was ag­gra­vat­ed, first by the un­pro­pi­tious weath­er and de­fi­cient har­vest of the years 1816, 1817, and still more by the pass­ing in 1819 of the bill restor­ing cash pay­ments, which, com­ing in­to op­er­ation in 1821, caused se­ri­ous em­bar­rass­ment to all per­sons who had en­tered in­to en­gage­ments at a de­pre­ci­at­ed cur­ren­cy, which had now to be met with the low­er prices of an en­hanced one. The fre­quen­cy of se­lect-​com­mit­tees and com­mis­sions, which sat in 1814, 1821 and 1822, 1833 and 1836, tes­ti­fies to the grav­ity of the cri­sis. The years 1830-1833 are es­pe­cial­ly mem­orable for a dis­as­trous out­break of sheep-​rot and for agrar­ian out­rages, caused part­ly by the dis­like of the labour­ers to the in­tro­duc­tion of agri­cul­tur­al ma­chines.

Dur­ing this pe­ri­od of de­pres­sion, which last­ed till the ‘for­ties, want of con­fi­dence pre­vent­ed any gen­er­al im­prove­ment in agri­cul­tur­al meth­ods. At the same time, cer­tain de­vel­op­ments des­tined to ex­er­cise con­sid­er­able in­flu­ence in lat­er times are to be not­ed. Be­fore the close of the 18th cen­tu­ry, and dur­ing the first quar­ter of the 19th, a good deal had been done in the way of drain­ing the land, ei­ther by open ditch­es or by James Elk­ing­ton’s sys­tem of deep cov­ered drains. In 1834 James Smith of Deanston pro­mul­gat­ed his sys­tem of thor­ough drain­ing and deep plough­ing, the adop­tion of which im­mea­sur­ably im­proved the clay lands of the coun­try. The ear­ly years of the reign of Queen Vic­to­ria wit­nessed the strength­en­ing of the union be­tween agri­cul­ture and chem­istry. The Board of Agri­cul­ture in 1803 had com­mis­sioned Sir Humphry Davy to de­liv­er a course of lec­tures on the con­nex­ion of chem­istry with veg­etable phys­iol­ogy. In 1840 the ap­pear­ance of Chem­istry in its Ap­pli­ca­tion to Agri­cul­ture and Phys­iol­ogy by Jus­tus von Liebig set on foot a move­ment in favour of sci­en­tif­ic hus­bandry, the most no­table out­come of which was the es­tab­lish­ment by Sir John Ben­net Lawes in 1843 of the ex­per­imen­tal sta­tion of Rotham­st­ed. Since Blith’s time bone was the one new fer­til­iz­er that had come in­to use. Ni­trate of so­da, Pe­ru­vian guano and su­per­phos­phate of lime in the form of bones dis­solved by sul­phuric acid were now added to the list of ma­nures, and the prac­tice of analysing soils be­came more gen­er­al. Man­ual labour in farm­ing op­er­ations be­gan to be su­per­seded by the use of drills, hay-​mak­ers and horse-​rakes, chaff-​cut­ters and root-​pulpers. The reap­ing-​ma­chine, in­vent­ed in 1812 by John Com­mon, im­proved up­on by the Rev. Patrick Bell in Eng­land and by Cyrus H. Mc­Cormick and oth­ers in Amer­ica, and fi­nal­ly per­fect­ed about 1879 by the ad­di­tion of an ef­fi­cient self-​bind­ing ap­pa­ra­tus, is the most strik­ing ex­am­ple of the ap­pli­ca­tion of me­chan­ics to agri­cul­ture. Im­prove­ments in the plough, har­row and roller were in­tro­duced, adapt­ing those im­ple­ments to dif­fer­ent soils and pur­pos­es. The steam-​en­gine first took the place of hors­es as a thresh­ing pow­er in 1803, but it was not un­til af­ter 1850 that it was ap­plied to the plough and cul­ti­va­tor. The em­ploy­ment of agri­cul­tur­al ma­chines re­ceived con­sid­er­able im­pe­tus from the Great Ex­hi­bi­tion of 1851. The much-​de­bat­ed Corn Laws, af­ter un­der­go­ing var­ious mod­ifi­ca­tions, and prov­ing the fruit­ful source of busi­ness un­cer­tain­ty, so­cial dis­con­tent and an­gry par­ti­san­ship, were fi­nal­ly abol­ished in 1846, al­though the act was not con­sum­mat­ed un­til three years lat­er. Sev­er­al oth­er acts of the leg­is­la­ture passed dur­ing this pe­ri­od ex­ert­ed a ben­efi­cial in­flu­ence on agri­cul­ture. Of these, the first in date and im­por­tance is the Tithe Com­mu­ta­tion Act of 1836. Im­prove­ment was al­so stim­ulat­ed by the Pub­lic Mon­ey Drainage Acts 1846-1856, un­der which gov­ern­ment was em­pow­ered to ad­vance mon­ey on cer­tain con­di­tions for the im­prove­ment of es­tates. Ad­di­tion­al fa­cil­ities were grant­ed by the act passed in 1848 for dis­en­tail­ing es­tates, and for bur­den­ing such as are en­tailed with the share of the cost of cer­tain spec­ified im­prove­ments.

Mean­while much had been done in the or­ga­ni­za­tion of agri­cul­tur­al knowl­edge. Men­tion has al­ready been made of the in­sti­tu­tion of the High­land So­ci­ety and the Na­tion­al Board of Agri­cul­ture. These in­sti­tu­tions were the means of col­lect­ing a vast amount of sta­tis­ti­cal and gen­er­al in­for­ma­tion con­nect­ed with agri­cul­ture, and by their pub­li­ca­tions and pre­mi­ums made known the prac­tices of the best-​farmed dis­tricts and en­cour­aged their adop­tion else­where. These as­so­ci­ations were soon aid­ed in their im­por­tant labours by nu­mer­ous lo­cal so­ci­eties which sprang up in all parts of the king­dom. Af­ter a high­ly use­ful ca­reer, un­der the pres­iden­cy till 1813 of Sir John Sin­clair, the Board of Agri­cul­ture was dis­solved in 1819, but left in its sta­tis­ti­cal ac­count, coun­ty sur­veys and oth­er doc­uments much in­ter­est­ing and valu­able in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing the agri­cul­ture of the pe­ri­od. In 1800 the orig­inal Farmer’s Mag­azine came in­to ex­is­tence un­der the ed­itor­ship of Robert Brown of Markle, the au­thor of the well-​known trea­tise on Ru­ral Af­fairs. The High­land So­ci­ety hav­ing ear­ly ex­tend­ed its op­er­ations to the whole of Scot­land, by and by made a cor­re­spond­ing ad­di­tion to its ti­tle, and as the High­land and Agri­cul­tur­al So­ci­ety of Scot­land grad­ual­ly ex­tend­ed its op­er­ations. In 1828, short­ly af­ter the dis­con­tin­uance of the Farm­ers’ Mag­azine, its Prize Es­says and Trans­ac­tions be­gan to be is­sued stat­ed­ly in con­nex­ion with the Quar­ter­ly Jour­nal of Agri­cul­ture. This so­ci­ety ear­ly be­gan to hold a great show of live stock, im­ple­ments, &c. In 1842 cer­tain Mid­loth­ian ten­ant-​farm­ers had the mer­it of orig­inat­ing an Agri­cul­tur­al Chem­istry As­so­ci­ation (the first of its kind), by which funds were raised for the pur­pose of con­duct­ing such in­ves­ti­ga­tions as the ti­tle of the so­ci­ety im­plies. Af­ter a suc­cess­ful tri­al of a few years this as­so­ci­ation was dis­solved, trans­fer­ring its func­tions to the High­land and Agri­cul­tur­al So­ci­ety.

In Eng­land the Agri­cul­tur­al So­ci­ety was found­ed in 1838, with the mot­to “Prac­tice with Sci­ence,” and short­ly af­ter­wards in­cor­po­rat­ed by roy­al char­ter. In 1845 the Roy­al Agri­cul­tur­al Col­lege at Cirences­ter was in­cor­po­rat­ed. This era of re­vival was not, how­ev­er, with­out its calami­ties. The foot-​and-​mouth dis­ease first ap­peared about 1840, hav­ing been in­tro­duced, as is sup­posed, by for­eign cat­tle. It spread rapid­ly over the coun­try, af­fect­ing all do­mes­ti­cat­ed an­imals ex­cept hors­es, and al­though sel­dom at­tend­ed by fa­tal re­sults, caused ev­ery­where great alarm and loss. It was soon fol­lowed by the more ter­ri­ble lung-​dis­ease, or pleu­ro-​pneu­mo­nia. In 1865 the rinder­pest, or steppe mur­rain, orig­inat­ing amongst the vast herds of the Rus­sian steppes, had spread west­ward over Eu­rope, un­til it was brought to Lon­don by for­eign cat­tle. Sev­er­al weeks elapsed be­fore the true char­ac­ter of the dis­ease was known, and in this brief space it had al­ready been car­ried by an­imals pur­chased in Smith­field mar­ket to all parts of the coun­try. Af­ter caus­ing the most fright­ful loss­es, it was at last stamped out by the res­olute slaugh­ter of all af­fect­ed an­imals and of all that had been in con­tact with them. Se­vere as were the loss­es in flocks and herds from these im­port­ed dis­eases, they were eclipsed by the rav­ages of the mys­te­ri­ous pota­to blight, which, first ap­pear­ing in 1845, per­vad­ed the whole of Eu­rope, and in Ire­land es­pe­cial­ly proved the pre­cur­sor of famine and pesti­lence.

A short pe­ri­od of low prices fol­lowed the re­peal of the Corn Laws, wheat av­er­ag­ing on­ly 38s. 6d. a quar­ter in 1851, but the years from 1852 to 1875 were the most pros­per­ous of the cen­tu­ry. The let­ters writ­ten by Sir James Caird to The Times dur­ing 1850, and re­pub­lished in 1852 un­der the ti­tle En­glish Agri­cul­ture in 1850-1851, give a gen­er­al re­view of En­glish agri­cul­ture at the time. The sci­en­tif­ic and me­chan­ical im­prove­ments of the first half of the cen­tu­ry were wide­ly adopt­ed, while the prices of the pro­tec­tion­ist pe­ri­od showed lit­tle de­cline. Ame­lio­ra­tion in all breeds of do­mes­ti­cat­ed an­imals was man­ifest­ed, not so much in the pro­duc­tion of in­di­vid­ual spec­imens of high mer­it as in the dif­fu­sion of these and oth­er good breeds over the coun­try, and in the im­proved qual­ity of live stock as a whole. The fat­ten­ing of an­imals was con­duct­ed on more sci­en­tif­ic prin­ci­ples. In­creased at­ten­tion was suc­cess­ful­ly be­stowed on the im­prove­ment of field crops. Im­proved va­ri­eties, ob­tained by cross-​im­preg­na­tion ei­ther nat­ural­ly or ar­ti­fi­cial­ly brought about, were care­ful­ly prop­agat­ed and gen­er­al­ly adopt­ed, and in­creased at­ten­tion was be­stowed on the cul­ti­va­tion of the nat­ural grass­es. The most im­por­tant ad­di­tions to the list of field crops were Ital­ian rye-​grass, win­ter beans, white Bel­gian car­rot and al­sike clover.

Agri­cul­ture since 1875.

The last quar­ter of the 19th cen­tu­ry proved, how­ev­er, a fate­ful pe­ri­od for British agri­cul­ture. The great fu­ture that seemed to await the ap­pli­ca­tion of steam pow­er to the tillage of the soil proved il­lu­so­ry. The clay soils of Eng­land, the la­tent fer­til­ity of which was to be brought in­to play in a fash­ion that should might­ily aug­ment the home-​grown sup­plies of food, re­mained in­tractable, and the ex­tent of land de­vot­ed to the cul­ti­va­tion of corn crops, in­stead of ex­pand­ing, di­min­ished in a marked de­gree. British farm­ers of long ex­pe­ri­ence look back to 1874 as the last of the re­al­ly good years, and con­sid­er that the palmy days of British agri­cul­ture be­gan to dwin­dle at about that time. The shad­ow of the ap­proach­ing de­pres­sion had al­ready fall­en up­on the land be­fore the year 1875 had run its course, and the out­look be­came omi­nous as the decade of the ’sev­en­ties neared its close. One mem­orable fea­ture was as­so­ci­at­ed with 1877 in that this was the last year in which the dread­ed cat­tle plague (rinder­pest) made its ap­pear­ance in Eng­land. The same year, 1877, was the last al­so in which the an­nu­al av­er­age price of En­glish wheat (then 56s. 9d.) ex­ceed­ed 50s. a quar­ter. With de­clin­ing prices for farm pro­duce came that year of un­hap­py mem­ory, 1879, when per­sis­tent rains and an al­most sun­less sum­mer ru­ined the crops and re­duced many farm­ers to a state of des­ti­tu­tion. Much of the grain was nev­er har­vest­ed, whilst ow­ing main­ly to the ex­ces­sive floods there com­menced an out­break of liv­er-​rot in sheep, due to the rav­ages of the fluke par­asite. This con­tin­ued for sev­er­al years, and the mor­tal­ity was so great that its ad­verse ef­fects up­on the ovine pop­ula­tion of the coun­try were still per­cep­ti­ble ten years af­ter­wards. A fall in rents was the nec­es­sary se­quel of the agri­cul­tur­al dis­tress, to in­quire in­to which a roy­al com­mis­sion was ap­point­ed in 1879, un­der the chair­man­ship of the duke of Rich­mond and Gor­don. Its re­port, pub­lished in 1882, tes­ti­fied to “the great ex­tent and in­ten­si­ty of the dis­tress which has fall­en up­on the agri­cul­tur­al com­mu­ni­ty. Own­ers and oc­cu­piers have alike suf­fered from it. No de­scrip­tion of es­tate or tenure has been ex­empt­ed. The own­er in fee and life ten­ant, the oc­cu­pi­er, whether of large or of small hold­ing, whether un­der lease, or cus­tom, or agree­ment, or the pro­vi­sions of the Agri­cul­tur­al Hold­ings Act–all with­out dis­tinc­tion have been in­volved in a gen­er­al calami­ty.” The two most promi­nent caus­es as­signed for the de­pres­sion were bad sea­sons and for­eign com­pe­ti­tion, ag­gra­vat­ed by the in­creased cost of pro­duc­tion and the heavy loss­es of live stock. Abun­dant ev­idence was forth­com­ing as to the ex­tent to which agri­cul­ture had been in­ju­ri­ous­ly af­fect­ed “by an un­prece­dent­ed suc­ces­sion of bad sea­sons.” As re­gards the pres­sure of for­eign com­pe­ti­tion, it was stat­ed to be great­ly in ex­cess of the an­tic­ipa­tions of the sup­port­ers, and of the ap­pre­hen­sions of the op­po­nents of the re­peal of the Corn Laws. Where­as for­mer­ly the farmer was to some ex­tent com­pen­sat­ed by a high­er price for a small­er yield, in re­cent years he had had to com­pete with an un­usu­al­ly large sup­ply at great­ly re­duced prices. On the oth­er hand, he had en­joyed the ad­van­tage of an ex­tend­ed sup­ply of feed­ing-​stuffs—such as maize, lin­seed­cake and cot­ton-​cake—and of ar­ti­fi­cial ma­nures im­port­ed from abroad. The low price of agri­cul­tur­al pro­duce, ben­efi­cial though it might be to the gen­er­al com­mu­ni­ty, had less­ened the abil­ity of the land to bear the pro­por­tion of tax­ation which had hereto­fore been im­posed up­on it. The leg­isla­tive out­come of the find­ings of this roy­al com­mis­sion was the Agri­cul­tur­al Hold­ings Act 1883, a mea­sure which con­tin­ued in force in its en­tire­ty till 1901, when a new act came in­to op­er­ation.

The ap­par­ent­ly hope­less out­look for corn-​grow­ing com­pelled farm­ers to cast about for some oth­er means of sub­sis­tence, and to re­ly more than they had hith­er­to done up­on the pos­si­bil­ities of stock-​breed­ing. It was in par­tic­ular the mis­for­tunes of the lat­er ’sev­en­ties that gave the need­ed fil­lip to that branch of stock-​farm­ing con­cerned with the pro­duc­tion of milk, but­ter and cheese, and from this pe­ri­od may be said to date the re­vival of the dairy­ing in­dus­try, which re­ceived a pow­er­ful im­pe­tus through the in­tro­duc­tion of the cen­trifu­gal cream sep­ara­tor, and was fos­tered by the British Dairy Farm­ers’ As­so­ci­ation (formed in 1875). The gen­er­al­ly wet char­ac­ter of the sea­sons in 1879 and the two or three years fol­low­ing was main­ly re­spon­si­ble for the high prices of meat, so that the sup­plies of fresh beef and mut­ton from Aus­tralia which now be­gan to ar­rive found a ready mar­ket, and the trade in im­port­ed fresh meat which was thus com­menced has prac­ti­cal­ly con­tin­ued to ex­pand ev­er since. The great loss­es aris­ing from spoilt hay crops served to stim­ulate ex­per­imen­tal in­quiry in­to the method of pre­serv­ing green fod­der known as en­si­lage, with the re­sult that the sys­tem even­tu­al­ly be­came suc­cess­ful­ly in­cor­po­rat­ed in the or­di­nary rou­tine of agri­cul­tur­al prac­tice. A con­tem­po­ra­ne­ous ef­fort in the di­rec­tion of dry­ing hay by ar­ti­fi­cial means led to noth­ing of prac­ti­cal im­por­tance. By 1882 the cry as to land go­ing out of cul­ti­va­tion be­came loud and gen­er­al, and the mi­gra­tion of the ru­ral pop­ula­tion in­to the towns in search of work con­tin­ued unchecked (see be­low, Agri­cul­tur­al Pop­ula­tion) . In 1883 foot-​and-​mouth dis­ease was ter­ri­bly ram­pant amongst the herds and flocks of Great Britain, and was far more preva­lent than it has ev­er been since. It was about this time that the first ex­per­iments were made (in Ger­many) with ba­sic slag, a ma­te­ri­al which had hith­er­to been re­gard­ed as a worth­less by-​prod­uct of steel man­ufac­ture. A year or two lat­er field tri­als were be­gun in Eng­land, with the fi­nal re­sult that ba­sic slag has be­come rec­og­nized as a valu­able source of phos­pho­rus for grow­ing crops, and is now in con­stant de­mand for ap­pli­ca­tion to the soil as a fer­til­iz­er.

In 1883 the vet­eri­nary de­part­ment of the Privy Coun­cil–which had been con­sti­tut­ed in 1865 when the coun­try was rav­aged by cat­tle plague—was abol­ished by or­der in coun­cil, and the “Agri­cul­tur­al De­part­ment” was sub­sti­tut­ed, but no al­ter­ation was ef­fect­ed in the work of the de­part­ment, so far as it re­lat­ed to an­imals. In 1889 the Board of Agri­cul­ture (for Great Britain) was formed un­der an act of par­lia­ment of that year (see AGRI­CUL­TURE, BOARD OF). The elec­tion took place in the same year (1889) of the first coun­ty coun­cils, and the al­lot­ment to them of var­ious sums of mon­ey un­der the Lo­cal Tax­ation (Cus­toms and Ex­cise) Act 1890 en­abled lo­cal pro­vi­sion to be made for the pro­mo­tion of tech­ni­cal in­struc­tion in agri­cul­ture (see be­low, Agri­cul­tur­al Ed­uca­tion.) It was about this time that the val­ue of a mix­ture of lime and sul­phate of cop­per (bouil­lie bor­de­laise), sprayed in so­lu­tion up­on the grow­ing plants, came to be rec­og­nized as a check up­on the rav­ages of pota­to dis­ease.

The gen­er­al ex­pe­ri­ence of the decade of the ‘eight­ies was that of dis­ap­point­ing sum­mers, harsh win­ters, falling prices, de­clin­ing rents and the shrink­age of land val­ues. It is true that one sea­son of the se­ries, that of 1887, was hot and droughty, but the fol­low­ing sum­mer was ex­ceed­ing­ly wet. Nev­er­the­less, the decade closed more hope­ful­ly than it opened, and found farm­ers tak­ing a keen­er in­ter­est in grass land, in live stock and in dairy­ing. Cat­tle-​breed­ers did well in 1889, but sheep-​breed­ers fared bet­ter; on the oth­er hand, ow­ing to re­ced­ing prices, corn grow­ers were more dis­heart­ened than ev­er. With the in­com­ing of the last decade of the cen­tu­ry there seemed to be some jus­ti­fi­able hopes of the dawn of bet­ter times, but they were speed­ily doomed to dis­ap­point­ment. In 1891 ex­ces­sive­ly heavy au­tumn rains washed the arable soils to such an ex­tent that the next sea­son’s corn crops were be­low av­er­age. Wheat in par­tic­ular was a poor crop in 1892, and the low yield was as­so­ci­at­ed with falling prices due to large im­ports. The hay crop was very in­fe­ri­or, and in some cas­es it was prac­ti­cal­ly ru­ined. This gave a stim­ulus to the trade in im­port­ed hay, which rose from 61,237 tons in 1892 to 263,050 tons in 1893, and de­spite some large home-​grown crops in cer­tain sub­se­quent years (1897 and 1898) this ex­pan­sion has nev­er since been whol­ly lost.

The mis­for­tunes of 1892 proved to be mere­ly a prepa­ra­tion for the dis­as­ters of 1893, in which year oc­curred the most de­struc­tive drought with­in liv­ing mem­ory. Its worst ef­fects were seen up­on the light land farms of Eng­land, and so de­plorable was the po­si­tion that a roy­al com­mis­sion on agri­cul­tur­al de­pres­sion was ap­point­ed in Septem­ber of that year un­der the chair­man­ship of Mr Shaw Lefevre (af­ter­wards Lord Ev­er­sley). Thus, with­in the last quar­ter of the 19th cen­tu­ry–and, as a mat­ter of fact, on­ly four­teen years apart–two roy­al com­mis­sions on agri­cul­ture were ap­point­ed, the one in a year of mem­orable flood, 1879, and the oth­er in a year of dis­as­trous drought, 1893. The re­port of the com­mis­sion of 1893 was is­sued in March 1896. Amongst its chief rec­om­men­da­tions were those re­lat­ing to amend­ments in the Agri­cul­tur­al Hold­ings Acts, and to tithe rent-​charge, rail­way rates, dam­age by game, sale of adul­ter­at­ed prod­ucts, and sale of im­port­ed goods (meat, for ex­am­ple) as home pro­duce. Two leg­isla­tive en­act­ments arose out of the work of this com­mis­sion. In the ma­jor­ity re­port it was stat­ed “that, in or­der to place agri­cul­tur­al lands in their right po­si­tion as com­pared with oth­er rat­able prop­er­ties, it is es­sen­tial that they should be as­sessed to all lo­cal rates in a re­duced pro­por­tion of their rat­able val­ue.” The Agri­cul­tur­al Rates Act 1896 gave ef­fect to this rec­om­men­da­tion. Its ob­jects were to re­lieve agri­cul­tur­al land from half the lo­cal rates, and to pro­vide the means of mak­ing good out of im­pe­ri­al funds the de­fi­cien­cy in lo­cal tax­ation caused there­by. It was pro­vid­ed that the act should con­tin­ue in force on­ly till the 31st of March 1902, but a fur­ther act in 1901 ex­tend­ed the pe­ri­od by four years, and in 1905 its op­er­ation was ex­tend­ed to the 31st of March 1910. The oth­er mea­sure aris­ing out of the re­port of the roy­al com­mis­sion of 1893 was the Agri­cul­tur­al Hold­ings Act 1900. This was an amend­ing act and not a con­sol­idat­ing act; con­se­quent­ly it had to be read as if in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to the al­ready ex­ist­ing acts. As af­fect­ing agri­cul­tur­al prac­tice there were three note­wor­thy im­prove­ments in re­spect of the mak­ing of which, with­out the con­sent of or no­tice to his land­lord, a ten­ant might claim com­pen­sa­tion—(1) the con­sump­tion on the hold­ing “by hors­es, oth­er than those reg­ular­ly em­ployed on the hold­ing,” of corn, cake or oth­er feed­ing-​stuff not pro­duced on the hold­ing; (2) the “con­sump­tion on the hold­ing by cat­tle, sheep, or pigs, or by hors­es oth­er than those reg­ular­ly em­ployed on the hold­ing, of corn proved by sat­is­fac­to­ry ev­idence to have been pro­duced and con­sumed on the hold­ing”; (3) “lay­ing down tem­po­rary pas­ture with clover, grass, lucerne, sain­foin or oth­er seeds sown more than two years pri­or to the de­ter­mi­na­tion of the ten­an­cy.” A fur­ther act was passed in 1906 (the Agri­cul­tur­al Hold­ings Act 1906) which im­proved the ten­ant’s po­si­tion in re­spect of free­dom of crop­ping, dis­pos­al of pro­duce and com­pen­sa­tion for dis­tur­bance.

Af­ter 1894, in which year the bril­liant prospects of a boun­ti­ful har­vest were ul­ti­mate­ly ex­tin­guished by un­time­ly and heavy rains, all the re­main­ing sea­sons of the clos­ing decade of the 19th cen­tu­ry were dom­inat­ed by drought. A fact that was am­ply il­lus­trat­ed, more­over, is that the pe­ri­od of in­ci­dence of a drought is not less im­por­tant than its du­ra­tion, and the same is true of ab­nor­mal rain­fall. A spring drought, a sum­mer drought, an au­tumn drought, each has its dis­tinc­tive char­ac­ter­is­tics in so far as the ef­fect up­on the crops is con­cerned. The hot drought of 1893 ex­tend­ed over the spring and sum­mer months, but there was an abun­dant rain­fall in the au­tumn; cor­re­spond­ing­ly there was an un­prece­dent­ed­ly bad yield of corn and hay crops, but a mod­er­ate­ly fair yield of the main root crops (turnips and swedes). In 1899 the drought be­came most in­tense in the au­tumn af­ter the corn crops had been har­vest­ed, but dur­ing the chief pe­ri­od, of growth of the root crops; cor­re­spond­ing­ly the corn crops of that year rank very well amongst the crops of the decade, but the yield of turnips and swedes was the worst on record. It is quite pos­si­ble for a hot dry sea­son to be as­so­ci­at­ed with a large yield of corn, pro­vid­ed the drought is con­fined to a suit­able pe­ri­od, as was the case in 1896 and still more so in 1898; the En­glish wheat crops in those years were prob­ably the biggest in yield per acre that had been har­vest­ed since 1868, which is al­ways looked back up­on as a re­mark­able year for wheat. The drought of 1898 was in­ter­rupt­ed by co­pi­ous rains in June, and these falling on a warm soil led to a rapid growth of grass and, as mea­sured by yield per acre, an ex­ceed­ing­ly heavy crop of hay.

With the ex­cep­tions of 1891 and 1894, ev­ery year in the pe­ri­od 1891-1900 was strick­en by drought. The two me­te­oro­log­ical events of the decade which will prob­ably live longest in the rec­ol­lec­tion were, how­ev­er, the ter­ri­ble drought of 1893, re­sult­ing in a fod­der famine in the suc­ceed­ing win­ter, and the se­vere frost of ten weeks’ du­ra­tion at the be­gin­ning of 1895. Be­tween these two oc­cur­rences came the dis­as­trous de­cline in the val­ue of grain in the au­tumn of 1894, when the week­ly av­er­age price of En­glish wheat fell to the record min­imum of 17s. 6d. per im­pe­ri­al quar­ter. As a con­se­quence, the ex­tent of land de­vot­ed to wheat in the British Isles re­ced­ed in 1895 to less than 1 1/2 mil­lion acres. The year 1903 was mem­orable for a very heavy rain­fall, com­pa­ra­ble though not equal in its dis­as­trous ef­fects to that of 1879. Suc­cess­ful tri­als of sul­phate of cop­per so­lu­tion as a means of de­stroy­ing char­lock in corn crops took place in the years 1898-1900. Char­lock is a most per­sis­tent cru­cif­er­ous weed, but if sprayed when young with the so­lu­tion named it is killed, the corn plants be­ing un­in­jured. In 1901 the for­ma­tion of the Agri­cul­tur­al Or­ga­ni­za­tion So­ci­ety marked the first sys­tem­at­ic at­tempt to or­ga­nize co-​op­er­ation among the farm­ers of Great Britain. In the sub­se­quent years the prin­ci­ple, which had al­ready made great progress in Ire­land, be­gan to ob­tain a hold in Eng­land and Wales, where, in 1906, there were 145 lo­cal co-​op­er­ative so­ci­eties with a turn-​over of

Amongst leg­isla­tive mea­sures of im­por­tance to agri­cul­tur­ists men­tion should be made, in ad­di­tion to those that have been re­ferred to, of the Tithe Rent-​charge Re­cov­ery Act 1891, which trans­fers the li­abil­ity for pay­ment of tithe from the oc­cu­pi­er to the own­er. In the same year was passed the Mar­kets and Fairs (Weigh­ing of Cat­tle) Act. The ob­ject of the Small Hold­ings Act 1892 was to fa­cil­itate the ac­qui­si­tion of small agri­cul­tur­al hold­ings. It pro­vid­ed that a coun­ty coun­cil might ac­quire any suit­able land, with the ob­ject of al­lot­ting from one to fifty acres, or, if more than fifty acres, of an an­nu­al val­ue not ex­ceed­ing L. 50, to per­sons who de­sired to buy, and would them­selves cul­ti­vate, the hold­ings. If, ow­ing to prox­im­ity to a town or oth­er­wise, the prospec­tive val­ue were too high, the coun­cil might hire such land for the pur­pose of let­ting it. (See AL­LOT­MENTS AND SMALL HOLD­INGS for this and oth­er acts.) The Fer­til­iz­ers and Feed­ing Stuffs Act 1893 com­pelled sell­ers of fer­til­iz­ers (i.e. ma­nures), man­ufac­tured or im­port­ed, to state the per­cent­age of the ni­tro­gen, of the sol­uble and in­sol­uble phos­phates, and of the potash in each ar­ti­cle sold, and this state­ment was to have the ef­fect of a war­ran­ty. Sim­ilar strin­gent con­di­tions ap­plied as re­gards the sale of feed­ing-​stuffs for live stock. The Fer­til­iz­ers and Feed­ing Stuffs Act 1906, amend­ing and re-​en­act­ing the act of 1893, pro­vid­ed for the com­pul­so­ry ap­point­ment by coun­ty coun­cils of of­fi­cial sam­plers. It al­so pro­vides penal­ties for breach­es of du­ty by the sell­er, but grants him pro­tec­tion in cas­es where he is not moral­ly re­spon­si­ble. The Fi­nance Act of 1894, with its great changes in the death du­ties, over­shad­owed all oth­er acts of that year both in its im­me­di­ate ef­fects and in its far-​reach­ing con­se­quences. The Copy­hold Con­sol­ida­tion Act 1894 su­per­sedes six pre­vi­ous copy­hold statutes, but does not ef­fect any al­ter­ation in the law con­cern­ing en­fran­chise­ment. The Dis­eases of An­imals Act 1896 pro­vid­ed for the com­pul­so­ry slaugh­ter of im­port­ed live stock at the place of land­ing. The Light Rail­ways Act and the Lo­co­mo­tives on High­ways Act were added to the statute book in 1896, and var­ious claus­es in the Fi­nance Act ef­fect­ed re­forms in re­spect of the death du­ties, the land-​tax, farm­ers’ in­come-​tax and the beer du­ty. The Chaff-​cut­ting Ma­chines (Ac­ci­dents) Act 1897 is a mea­sure very sim­ilar in its in­ten­tion to the Thresh­ing Ma­chines Act 1878, and pro­vides for the au­to­mat­ic pre­ven­tion of ac­ci­dents to per­sons in charge of chaff-​cut­ting ma­chines. The Sale of Food and Drugs Act 1899 has spe­cial ref­er­ence in its ear­li­er sec­tions to the trade in dairy pro­duce and mar­garine. In 1899 was al­so passed the act es­tab­lish­ing the De­part­ment of Agri­cul­ture and Tech­ni­cal In­struc­tion in Ire­land.

The year 1900 saw the pass­ing of a Work­men’s Com­pen­sa­tion Act, which ex­tend­ed the ben­efits of the act of 1807 to agri­cul­tur­al labour­ers.

Acreage and Yields of British Crops.

The most no­table fea­ture in con­nex­ion with the crop­ping of the land of the Unit­ed King­dom be­tween 1875 and 1905 was the less­ened cul­ti­va­tion of the ce­re­al crops as­so­ci­at­ed with an ex­pan­sion in the area of grass land. At the be­gin­ning of the pe­ri­od the ag­gre­gate area un­der wheat, bar­ley and oats was near­ly 10 1/2 mil­lion acres; at the close it did not amount to 8 mil­lion acres. There was thus a with­draw­al dur­ing the pe­ri­od of over 2 1/2 mil­lion acres from ce­re­al cul­ti­va­tion. From Ta­ble I., show­ing the acreages at in­ter­vals of five years, it will be learnt that the loss fell chiefly up­on the wheat crop, which at the close of the pe­ri­od

TA­BLE 1.–Ar­eas of Ce­re­al Crops in the Unit­ed King­dom — Acres

YEAR. WHEAT. BAR­LEY. OATS. TO­TAL. 1875 3,514,088 2,751,362 4,176,177 10,441,627 1880 3,065,895 2,695,000 4,191,716 9,952,611 1885 2,553,092 2,447,169 4,282,594 9,282,855 1890 2,483,595 2,300,994 4,137,790 8,922,379 1895 1,456,042 2,346,367 4,527,899 8,330,308 1900 1,901,014 2,172,140 4,145,633 8,218,787 1905 1,836,598 1,872,305 4,137,406 7,846,309

oc­cu­pied bare­ly more than half the area as­signed to it at the be­gin­ning. If the land tak­en from wheat had been cropped with one or both of the oth­er ce­re­als, the ag­gre­gate area would have re­mained about the same. This, how­ev­er, was not the case, for a fair­ly uni­form de­crease in the bar­ley area was ac­com­pa­nied by some­what ir­reg­ular fluc­tu­ations in the acreage of oats. To the de­cline in prices of home-​grown ce­re­als the de­crease in area is large­ly at­tributable. The ex­tent of this de­cline is seen in Ta­ble II., where­in are giv­en the an­nu­al av­er­age prices from 1875 to 1905, cal­cu­lat­ed up­on re­turns from the 190 statu­to­ry mar­kets of Eng­land and Wales (Corn Re­turns Act 1882). These prices are per im­pe­ri­al quar­ter,—that is, 480 lb. of wheat, 400 lb. of bar­ley and 312 lb. of oats, rep­re­sent­ing 60 lb, 50 lb. and 39 lb. per bushel re­spec­tive­ly. Af­ter 1883 the an­nu­al av­er­age price of En­glish wheat was nev­er so high as 40s. per quar­ter, and on­ly twice af­ter 1892 did it ex­ceed 30s. In one of these ex­cep­tion­al years, 1898, the av­er­age rose to 34s., but this was due en­tire­ly to a cou­ple of months of in­flat­ed prices in the ear­ly half of the year, when the out­break of war be­tween Spain and the Unit­ed States of Amer­ica co­in­cid­ed with a huge spec­ula­tive deal in the lat­ter coun­try. The

TA­BLE II.–Gazette An­nu­al Av­er­age Prices per Im­pe­ri­al Quar­ter of British Ce­re­als in Eng­land and Wales, 1875-1905.

Year. Wheat. Bar­ley. Oats. s. d. s. d. s. d. 1875 45 2 38 5 28 8 1876 46 2 35 2 26 3 1877 56 9 39 8 25 [] 1878 46 5 40 2 24 4 1879 43 10 34 0 21 9 1880 44 4 33 1 23 1 1881 45 4 31 11 21 9 1882 45 1 31 2 21 10 1883 41 7 31 10 21 5 1884 35 8 30 8 20 3 1885 32 10 30 1 20 7 1886 31 0 26 7 19 0 1887 32 6 25 4 16 3 1888 31 10 27 10 16 9 1889 29 9 25 10 17 9 1890 31 11 28 8 18 7 1891 37 0 28 2 20 0 1892 30 3 26 2 19 10 1893 26 4 25 7 18 9 1894 22 10 24 6 17 1 1895 23 1 21 11 14 6 1896 26 2 22 11 14 9 1897 30 2 23 6 16 11 1898 34 0 27 2 18 5 1899 25 8 25 7 17 0 1900 26 11 24 11 17 7 1901 26 9 25 2 18 5 1902 28 1 25 8 20 2 1903 26 9 22 8 17 2 1904 28 4 22 4 16 4 1905 29 8 24 4 17 4

week­ly av­er­age prices of En­glish wheat in 1898 fluc­tu­at­ed be­tween 48s. 1d. and 25s. 5d. per quar­ter, the for­mer be­ing the high­est week­ly av­er­age since 1882. The min­imum an­nu­al av­er­age was 22s. 10d. in 1894, in the au­tumn of which year the week­ly av­er­age sank to 17s. 6d. per quar­ter, the low­est on record. Wheat was so great a glut in the mar­ket that var­ious meth­ods were de­vised for feed­ing it to stock, a pur­pose for which it is not spe­cial­ly suit­ed; in thus uti­liz­ing the grain, how­ev­er, a small­er loss was of­ten in­curred than in send­ing it to mar­ket. In 1894 the month­ly av­er­age price for Oc­to­ber, the chief month for wheat-​sow­ing in Eng­land, was on­ly 17s. 8d. per quar­ter, and farm­ers nat­ural­ly shrank from seed­ing the land freely with a crop which could not be grown ex­cept at a heavy loss. The re­sult was that in the fol­low­ing year the wheat crop of the Unit­ed King­dom was har­vest­ed up­on the small­est area on record–less than 1 1/2 mil­lion acres. In on­ly one year, 1878, did the an­nu­al av­er­age price of En­glish bar­ley touch 40s. per quar­ter; it nev­er reached 30s. af­ter 1885, whilst in 1895 it fell to so low a lev­el as 21s. 11d. The same sto­ry of de­clin­ing prices ap­plies to oats. An av­er­age of 20s. per quar­ter was touched in 1891 and 1902, but with those ex­cep­tions this use­ful feed­ing grain did not reach that fig­ure af­ter 1885. In 1895 the av­er­age price of 480 lb. of wheat, at 23s. 1d., was iden­ti­cal with that of 312 lb. of oats in 1880, and it was less in the pre­ced­ing year. The de­clin­ing prices that have op­er­at­ed against the grow­ers of wheat should be stud­ied in con­junc­tion with Ta­ble III., which shows, at in­ter­vals of five years, the im­ports of

TA­BLE III.–Im­ports in­to the Unit­ed King­dom of Wheat Grain, and of Wheat Meal and Flour–Cwt.

Year. Wheat Grain. Meal and Flour. To­tal. 1875 51,876,517 6,136,083 58,012,600 1880 55,261,924 10,558,312 65,820,236 1885 61,498,864 15,832,843 77,331,707 1890 60,474,180 15,773,336 76,247,516 1895 81,749,955 18,368,410 100,118,365 1900 68,669,490 21,548,131 90,217,621 1905 97,622,752 11,954,763 109,577,515

wheat grain and of wheat meal and flour in­to the Unit­ed King­dom. The im­port of the man­ufac­tured prod­uct from 1875 to 1900 in­creased at a much greater ra­tio than that of the raw grain, for whilst in 1875 the for­mer rep­re­sent­ed less than one-​ninth of the to­tal, by 1900 the pro­por­tion had risen to near­ly one-​fourth. The of­fal, which is quite as valu­able as the flour it­self, was thus re­tained abroad in­stead of be­ing uti­lized for stock-​feed­ing pur­pos­es in the Unit­ed King­dom. In the five sub­se­quent years the pro­por­tion was fun­da­men­tal­ly al­tered, so that with a great­ly in­creased im­por­ta­tion of grain, that of meal and flour was in the pro­por­tion of about one-​ninth. The high­est and low­est ar­eas of wheat, bar­ley and oats in the Unit­ed King­dom dur­ing the pe­ri­od 1875-1905 were the

Wheat . 3,514,088 acres in 1875; 1,407,618 acres in 1904. Bar­ley . 2,931,809 acres in 1879; 1,872,305 acres in 1905. Oats . 4,527,899 acres in 1895; 3,998,200 acres in 1879.

These show dif­fer­ences amount­ing to 2,106,470 acres for wheat, 1,059,504 acres for bar­ley, and 529,699 acres for oats. The acreage of wheat, there­fore, fluc­tu­at­ed the most, and that of oats the least. Go­ing back to 1869, it is found that the ex­tent of wheat in that year was 3,981,989 acres or very lit­tle short of four mil­lion acres.

The acreage of rye grown in the Unit­ed King­dom as a grain crop is small, the re­spec­tive max­imum and min­imum ar­eas dur­ing the pe­ri­od 1875-1905 hav­ing been 102,676 acres in 1894 and 47,937 acres in 1880. Rye is per­haps more large­ly grown as a green crop to be fed off by sheep, or cut green for soil­ing, in the spring months.

Of corn crops oth­er than ce­re­als, beans and peas are both less cul­ti­vat­ed than for­mer­ly. In the pe­ri­od 1875-1905 the area of beans in the Unit­ed King­dom fluc­tu­at­ed be­tween 574,414 acres in 1875 and 230,429 acres in 1897, and that of peas be­tween 318,410 acres in 1875 and 155,668 acres in 1901. The area of peas (175,624 acres in 1905) shrank by near­ly one-​half, and that of beans (256,583 acres in 1905) by more than one-​half. Tak­ing ce­re­als and pulse corn to­geth­er, the ag­gre­gate ar­eas of wheat, bar­ley, oats, rye, beans and peas in the Unit­ed King­dom var­ied as fol­lows over the six quin­quen­ni­al in­ter­vals em­braced in the pe­ri­od

Year. Acres. | Year. Acres. 1875 . . 11,399,030 | 1890 . . 9,574,249 1880 . . 10,672,086 | 1895 . . 8,865,338 1885 . . 10,014,625 | 1900 . . 8,707,602 | 1905 . . 8,333,770

Dis­re­gard­ing mi­nor fluc­tu­ations, there was thus a loss of corn land over the 30 years of 3,065,260 acres, or 27%.

The area with­drawn from corn-​grow­ing is not to be found un­der the head of what are termed “green crops.” In 1905 the to­tal area of these crops in the Unit­ed King­dom was 4,144,374 acres, made up

Crop. Acres. Pota­toes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,236,768 Turnips and swedes . . . . . . . . . 1,879,384 Man­gel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 477,540 Cab­bage, kohl-​ra­bi and rape . . . . 225,315 Vetch­es or tares . . . . . . . . . . 139,285 Oth­er green crops . . . . . . . . . 186,082

The ex­treme ag­gre­gate ar­eas of these crops dur­ing the thir­ty years were 5,057,029 acres in 1875 and 4,109,394 acres in 1904. At five-​year in­ter­vals the ar­eas

Year. Acres. | Year. Acres. 1875 . . 5,057,029 | 1890 . . 4,534,145 1880 . . 4,746,293 | 1895 . . 4,399,949 1885 . . 4,765,195 | 1900 . . 4,301,774 | 1905 . . 4,144,374

These crops, there­fore, which, ex­cept pota­toes, are used main­ly for stock-​feed­ing, have like the corn crops been grown on grad­ual­ly di­min­ish­ing ar­eas.

The land that has been lost to the plough is found to be still fur­ther aug­ment­ed when an in­quiry is in­sti­tut­ed in­to the area de­vot­ed to clover, sain­foin and grass­es un­der ro­ta­tion. The ar­eas of five-​year in­ter­vals are giv­en in Ta­ble IV. Un­der the old Nor­folk or four-​course ro­ta­tion (roots, bar­ley, clover, wheat) land thus seed­ed with clover or grass seeds was in­tend­ed to be ploughed up at the end of a year. Labour dif­fi­cul­ties, low prices of pro­duce, bad sea­sons and sim­ilar caus­es pro­vid­ed in­duce­ments for leav­ing the land in grass for two years, or over three years or more, be­fore break­ing it up for wheat. In many cas­es it would be de­cid­ed to let such land re­main un­der grass in­def­inite­ly, and thus it would no longer be enu­mer­at­ed in the Agri­cul­tur­al Re­turns as tem­po­rary grass land, but would pass in­to the cat­ego­ry of per­ma­nent grass land, or what is of­ten spo­ken of as “per­ma­nent pas­ture.” Whilst much grass land has been laid down with the in­ten­tion from the out­set that it should be per­ma­nent, at the same time some con­sid­er­able ar­eas have through stress of cir­cum­stances been al­lowed to drift from the tem­po­rary or ro­ta­tion grass area to the per­ma­nent list, and have thus still fur­ther di­min­ished the area for­mer­ly un­der the do­min­ion of the plough. The col­umn re­lat­ing to per­ma­nent grass in Ta­ble IV. shows clear­ly enough how the British Isles be­came

TA­BLE IV.–Ar­eas of Grass Land (ex­clud­ing Heath and Moun­tain Land) in the Unit­ed King­dom–Acres. Per­ma­nent Year. Tem­po­rary (i.e. (i.e. not bro­ken up To­tal. un­der ro­ta­tion). in ro­ta­tion). 1875 6,337,953 23,772,602 30,110,555 1880 6,389,232 24,717,092 31,106,324 1885 6,738,206 25,616,071 32,354,277 1890 6,097,210 27,115,425 33,212,635 1895 6,061,139 27,831,117 33,892,256 1900 6,025,025 28,266,712 34,291,737 1905 5,779,323 28,865,373 34,644,696

more pas­toral, while the fig­ures al­ready giv­en demon­strate the ex­tent to which they be­came less arable. In the pe­ri­od 1875-1905 the ex­treme ar­eas re­turned as “per­ma­nent pas­ture”–a term which, it should be clear­ly un­der­stood, does not in­clude heath or moun­tain land, of which there are in Great Britain alone about 13 mil­lion acres used for graz­ing—were 23,772,602 acres in 1875, and 28,865,373 acres in 1905. Com­par­ing 1905 with 1875 the in­crease in per­ma­nent grass land amount­ed to over five mil­lion acres, or about 21%.

On ac­count of the greater hu­mid­ity and mild­ness of its cli­mate, Ire­land is more es­sen­tial­ly a pas­toral coun­try than Great Britain. The dis­tri­bu­tion be­tween the two is­lands of such im­por­tant crops of arable land as ce­re­als and pota­toes is in­di­cat­ed in Ta­ble V. The fig­ures are those for 1905, but, though the ab­so­lute acreages

TA­BLE V.–Ar­eas of Ce­re­al and Pota­to Crops in Great Britain and Ire­land in 1905.

Wheat. Bar­ley. Acres. Acres. Great Britain . 1,796,993 1,713,664 Ire­land . . . . 37,860 154,645 To­tal . . . . . 1,834,853 1,868,309 Oats. Pota­toes. Great Britain . 3,051,376 608,473 Ire­land . . . . 1,066,806 616,755 To­tal . . . . . 4,118,182 1,225,228

vary some­what from year to year, there is not much vari­ation in the pro­por­tions. The com­par­ative in­signif­icance of Ire­land in the case of the wheat and bar­ley crops, rep­re­sent­ed by 2 and 8% re­spec­tive­ly, re­ceives some com­pen­sa­tion when oats and pota­toes are con­sid­ered, about one-​fourth of the area of the for­mer and more than half that of the lat­ter be­ing claimed by Ire­land. It is note­wor­thy, how­ev­er, that Ire­land year by year places less re­liance up­on the pota­to crop. In 1888 the area of pota­toes in Ire­land was 804,566 acres, but it con­tin­uous­ly con­tract­ed each year, un­til in 1905 it was on­ly 616,755 acres, or 187,811 acres less than 17 years pre­vi­ous­ly.

A sim­ilar com­par­ison for the sev­er­al sec­tions of Great Britain, as set forth in Ta­ble VI., shows that to Eng­land be­long about 95% of the wheat area, over 80% of the bar­ley area, over 60% of the oats area, and over 70% of the pota­to area, and these pro­por­tions do not vary much from year to year. The fig­ures for ce­re­als are im­por­tant, as they in­di­cate that it is the farm­ers of Eng­land who are the chief suf­fer­ers through the di­min­ish­ing prices of corn; and par­tic­ular­ly is this true of East An­glia, where corn-​grow­ing is more large­ly pur­sued than in any oth­er part of the

TA­BLE VI.–Ar­eas of Ce­re­al and Pota­to Crops in Eng­land, Wales and Scot­land, and in Great Britain, in 1905.

Wheat. Bar­ley. Acres. Acres. Eng­land . . . . 1,704,281 1,410,287 Wales . . . . . 44,073 91,243 Scot­land . . . 48,641 212,134 Great Britain . 1,796,995 1,713,664 Oats. Pota­toes. Eng­land . . . . 1,880,475 434,773 Wales . . . . . 207,929 29,435 Scot­land . . . 962,972 144,265 Great Britain . 3,051,376 608,473

coun­try. Scot­land pos­sess­es near­ly one-​third of the area of oats and near­ly one-​fourth of that of pota­toes. Beans are al­most en­tire­ly con­fined to Eng­land, and this is even more the case with peas. The man­gel crop al­so is main­ly En­glish, the sum­mer in most parts of Scot­land be­ing nei­ther long enough nor warm enough to bring it to ma­tu­ri­ty.

The Pro­duce of British Crops.

Whilst the re­turns re­lat­ing to the acreage of crops and the num­ber of live stock in Great Britain have been of­fi­cial­ly col­lect­ed in each year since 1866, the an­nu­al of­fi­cial es­ti­mates of the pro­duce of the crops in the sev­er­al sec­tions of the king­dom do not ex­tend back be­yond 1885. The prac­tice is for the Board of Agri­cul­ture to ap­point lo­cal es­ti­ma­tors, who re­port in the au­tumn as to the to­tal pro­duc­tion of the crops in the lo­cal­ities re­spec­tive­ly as­signed to them. By di­vid­ing the to­tal pro­duc­tion, say of wheat, in each coun­ty by the num­ber of acres of wheat as re­turned by the oc­cu­piers on June 4, the es­ti­mat­ed av­er­age yield per acre is ob­tained. It is im­por­tant to no­tice that the fig­ures re­lat­ing to to­tal pro­duc­tion and yield per acre are on­ly es­ti­mates, and it is not claimed for them that they are any­thing more. The fact that much of the wheat to which the fig­ures ap­ply is still in the stack af­ter the pub­li­ca­tion of the fig­ures shows that the lat­ter are es­sen­tial­ly es­ti­mates. The to­tal pro­duce of any crop in a giv­en year must de­pend main­ly up­on the acreage grown, whilst the av­er­age yield per acre will be de­ter­mined chiefly by the char­ac­ter of the sea­son. In Ta­ble VII. are shown, in thou­sands

TA­BLE VII.–Es­ti­mat­ed An­nu­al To­tal Pro­duce of Corn Crops in the Unit­ed King­dom, 1890-1905 –Thou­sands of Bushels.

Year. Wheat. Bar­ley. Oats. Beans. Peas. 1890 75,994 80,794 171,295 11,860 6313 1891 74,743 79,555 166,472 10,694 5777 1892 60,775 76,939 168,181 7,054 5028 1893 50,913 65,746 168,588 4,863 4756 1894 60,704 78,601 190,863 7,198 6229 1895 38,285 75,028 174,476 5,626 4732 1896 58,247 77,825 162,860 6,491 4979 1897 56,296 72,613 163,556 6,650 5250 1898 74,885 74,731 172,578 7,267 4858 1899 67,261 74,532 166,140 7,566 4431 1900 54,322 68,546 165,137 7,469 4072 1901 53,928 67,643 161,175 6,154 4017 1902 58,278 74,439 184,184 7,704 5106 1903 48,819 65,310 172,941 7,535 4812 1904 37,920 62,453 176,755 5,901 4446 1905 60,333 65,004 166,286 8,262 4446

of bushels, the es­ti­mat­ed pro­duce of the corn crops of the Unit­ed King­dom in the years 1890-1905. The largest area of wheat in the pe­ri­od was that of 1890, and the small­est was that of 1904; the same two years are seen to have been re­spec­tive­ly those of high­est and low­est to­tal pro­duce. It is note­wor­thy that in 1895 the coun­try pro­duced about half as much wheat as in any one of the years 1890, 1891 and 1898. The pro­duce of bar­ley, like that of oats, is less ir­reg­ular than that of wheat, the ex­tremes for bar­ley be­ing 80,794,000 bushels (1890) and 62,453,000 bushels (1904), and those for oats 190,863,000 bushels (1894) and 161,175,000 bushels (1901). Sim­ilar de­tails for pota­toes, roots and hay, brought to­geth­er in Ta­ble VI­II., show that the

TA­BLE VI­II.–Es­ti­mat­ed An­nu­al To­tal Pro­duce of Pota­toes, Roots and Hay in the Unit­ed King­dom, 1890-1905–Thou­sands of Tons.

Year. Pota­toes. Turnips. Man­gels. Hay. 1890 4622 32,002 6709 14,466 1891 6090 29,742 7558 12,671 1892 5634 31,419 7428 11,567 1893 6541 31,110 5225 9,082 1894 4662 30,678 7310 15,699 1895 7065 29,221 6376 12,238 1896 6263 28,037 5875 11,416 1897 4107 29,785 7379 14,043 1898 6225 26,499 7228 15,916 1899 5837 20,370 7604 12,898 1900 4577 28,387 9650 13,742 1901 7043 25,298 9224 11,358 1902 5920 29,116 10,809 15,246 1903 5277 23,523 8212 14,955 1904 6230 28,033 8813 14,860 1905 7186 26,563 9493 13,554

pro­duc­tion of pota­toes varies much from year to year. The im­ports of pota­toes in­to the Unit­ed King­dom vary, to some ex­tend in­verse­ly; thus, the low pro­duc­tion in 1897 was ac­com­pa­nied by an in­crease of im­port from 3,921,205 cwt. in 1897 to 6,751,728 cwt. in 1898. No very great re­liance can be placed up­on the fig­ures re­lat­ing to turnips (which in­clude swedes), as these are most­ly fed to sheep on the ground, so that the es­ti­mates as to yield are nec­es­sar­ily vague. Man­gels are prob­ably more close­ly es­ti­mat­ed, as these valu­able roots are cart­ed and stored for sub­se­quent use for feed­ing stock. Un­der hay are in­clud­ed the pro­duce of clos­er, sain­foin and ro­ta­tion grass­es, and al­so that of per­ma­nent mead­ow. The ex­tent to which the an­nu­al pro­duc­tion of the lead­ing fod­der crop may vary is shown in the ta­ble by the two con­sec­utive years 1893 and 1894; from on­ly nine mil­lion tons in the for­mer year the pro­duc­tion rose to up­wards of fif­teen mil­lion tons in the lat­ter, an in­crease of over 70%.

Turn­ing to the av­er­age yields per acre, as as­cer­tained by di­vid­ing the num­ber of acres in­to the to­tal pro­duce, the re­sults of a decade are col­lect­ed in Ta­ble IX. The ef­fects of a pro­longed

TA­BLE IX.–Es­ti­mat­ed An­nu­al Av­er­age Yield per Acre of Crops in Unit­ed King­dom, 1895-1904.

Year. Wheat. Bar­ley. Oats. Beans. Peas. Pota­toes. Bush. Bush. Bush. Bush. Bush. Tons. 1895 26.33 32.09 38.67 22.98 22.62 5.64 1896 33.63 34.16 37.97 25.69 25.34 4.93 1897 29.07 32.91 38.84 28.91 27.55 3.47 1898 34.75 36.24 42.27 31.13 27.60 5.23 1899 32.76 34.64 40.57 30.19 27.22 4.82 1900 28.61 31.67 39.97 28.18 25.89 3.77 1901 30.93 31.70 39.35 24.29 25.97 5.81 1902 32.91 35.83 44.50 31.49 28.51 4.92 1903 30.15 32.38 40.81 31.27 26.56 4.45 1904 26.97 31.25 40.80 23.23 25.75 5.24 Mean, 10 Years 30.85 33.28 20.35 27.68 26.24 4.84 1905 32.88 34.79 40.38 32.33 25.71 5.86 Turnips and Hay, Hay, Year. Swedes. Man­gels. Ro­ta­tion. Per­ma­nent. Tons. Tons. Cwt. Cwt. 1895 13.11 16.44 29.08 25.21 1896 12.79 14.99 27.95 24.14 1897 13.90 18.03 32.53 30.71 1898 12.74 17.71 36.49 34.27 1899 9.97 17.41 31.04 29.11 1900 14.29 19.97 32.42 30.98 1901 12.95 19.37 28.98 23.85 1902 15.35 20.85 35.29 32.57 1903 12.44 17.19 33.07 31.27 1904 14.83 18.57 33.43 31.04 Mean, 10 Years 13.21 18.18 32.06 29.32 1905 14.19 19.91 32.24 28.37

spring and sum­mer drought, like that of 1893, are ex­em­pli­fied in the cir­cum­stance that four corn crops and the two hay crops all reg­is­tered very low av­er­age yields that year, viz. wheat 26.08 bushels, bar­ley 29.30 bushels, oats 38.14 bushels, beans 19.61 bushels, ro­ta­tion hay 23.55 cwt., per­ma­nent hay 20.41 cwt. On the oth­er hand, the sea­son of 1898 was ex­cep­tion­al­ly favourable to ce­re­als and to hay. The ef­fects of a pro­longed au­tumn drought, as dis­tin­guished from spring and sum­mer drought, are shown in the very low yield of turnips in 1899. Man­gels are sown ear­li­er and have a longer pe­ri­od of growth than turnips; if they be­come well es­tab­lished in the sum­mer they are less sus­cep­ti­ble to au­tumn drought. The hay made from clos­er, sain­foin and grass­es un­der ro­ta­tion gen­er­al­ly gives a big­ger av­er­age yield than that from per­ma­nent grass land. The mean val­ues at the foot of the ta­ble–they are not, strict­ly speak­ing, ex­act av­er­ages–in­di­cate the av­er­age yields per acre in the Unit­ed King­dom to be about 31 bushels of wheat, 33 bushels of bar­ley, 40 bushels of oats, 28 bushels of neams, 26 bushels of peas, 4 3/4 tons of pota­toes, 13 1/4 tons of turnips and swedes, 18 1/4 tons of man­gels, 32 cwt. of hay from tem­po­rary grass, and 29 cwt. of hay from per­manenet grass. Al­though enor­mous sin­gle crops of

TA­BLE X. De­cen­ni­al Av­er­age Yields in Great Britain of Wheat, Bar­ley and Oats–Bushels per Acre.

10-Year Pe­ri­ods. Wheat. Bar­ley. Oats. 1885-1894 29.32 33.02 38.21 1886-1895 28.81 32.68 38.23 1887-1896 29.49 32.82 38.13 1888-1897 29.19 32.97 38.51 1889-1898 29.86 33.26 38.86 1890-1899 30.15 33.50 38.81 1891-1900 29.92 33.13 38.46 1892-1901 29.83 32.80 38.26 1893-1902 30.53 32.83 38.64 1894-1903 30.95 33.16 39.05 1895-1904 30.56 32.82 38.81 1896-1905 31.21 33.04 38.92

man­gels are some­times grown, amount­ing oc­ca­sion­al­ly to 100 tons per acre, the gen­er­al av­er­age yield of 18 1/4 tons is about 5 tons more than that of turnips and swedes. Again, al­though from the rich­est old per­ma­nent mead­ow-​lands very heavy crops of hay are tak­en sea­son af­ter sea­son, the gen­er­al av­er­age yield of per­ma­nent grass is about 3 cwt. of hay per acre less than that from clover, sain­foin and grass­es un­der ro­ta­tion. The gen­er­al av­er­age yields of the corn crops are not fair­ly com­pa­ra­ble one with the oth­er, be­cause they are giv­en by mea­sure and not by weight, where­as the weight per bushel varies con­sid­er­ably. For pur­pos­es of com­par­ison it would be much bet­ter if the yields of corn crops were es­ti­mat­ed in cwt. per acre. This, in­deed, is the prac­tice in Ire­land, and in or­der to in­cor­po­rate the Irish fig­ures with those for Great Britain so as to ob­tain av­er­age val­ues for the Unit­ed King­dom, the Irish yields are cal­cu­lat­ed in­to bushels at the rate of 60lb to the bushel of wheat, of beans and peas, 50lb to the bushel of bar­ley and 39lb to the bushel of oats.

The fig­ure de­not­ing the gen­er­al av­er­age yield per acre of any class of crop need re-​ad­just­ment af­ter ev­ery suc­ces­sive har­vest. If a de­cen­ni­al pe­ri­od be tak­en, then–for the pur­pose of the new cal­cu­la­tion–the ear­li­est year is omit­ted and the lat­est year added, the num­ber of years con­tin­uing at ten. Adopt­ing this course in the case of the ce­re­al crops of Great Britain the de­cen­ni­al av­er­ages record­ed in Ta­ble X. are ob­tained, the pe­ri­od 1885-1894 be­ing the ear­li­est decade for which the of­fi­cial fig­ures are avail­able. It thus ap­pears that the av­er­age yield of wheat in Great Britain, as cal­cu­lat­ed up­on the crops har­vest­ed dur­ing the ten years (1896-1905), ex­ceed­ed 31 bushels to the acre, where­as, for the ten years end­ed 1895, it fell be­low 29 bushels. A large ex­pan­sion in the acreage of the wheat crop would prob­ably be at­tend­ed by a de­cline in the av­er­age yield per acre, for when a crop is shrink­ing in area the ten­den­cy is to with­draw from it first the land least suit­ed to its growth. The gen­er­al av­er­age for the Unit­ed King­dom might then re­cede to rather less than 28 bushels of 60 lb. per bushel, which was for a long time the ac­cept­ed av­er­age–un­less, of course, im­proved meth­ods of cul­ti­vat­ing and ma­nur­ing the soil were to in­crease its gen­er­al wheat-​yield­ing ca­pac­ity.6

Crops and Crop­ping.

The greater free­dom of crop­ping and the less close ad­her­ence to the for­mal sys­tem of ro­ta­tion of crops, which char­ac­ter­ize the ear­ly years of the 20th cen­tu­ry, rest up­on a sci­en­tif­ic ba­sis. Ex­per­imen­tal in­quiry has done much to en­light­en the farmer as to the re­quire­ments of plant-​life, and to en­able him to see how best to meet these re­quire­ments in the case of field crops. He can­not af­ford to ig­nore the re­sults that have been grad­ual­ly ac­cu­mu­lat­ed–the truths that have been slow­ly es­tab­lished–at the agri­cul­tur­al ex­per­iment sta­tions in var­ious parts of the world. Of these sta­tions the great­est, and the old­est now ex­ist­ing, is that at Rotham­st­ed, Harp­en­den, Herts, Eng­land, which was found­ed in 1843 by Sir John Ben­net Lawes (q.v.). The re­sults of more than half a cen­tu­ry of sus­tained ex­per­imen­tal in­quiry were com­mu­ni­cat­ed to the world by Lawes and his col­lab­ora­tor, Sir J. H. Gilbert, in about 130 sep­arate pa­pers or re­ports, many of which were pub­lished, from 1847 on­wards, in the Jour­nal of the Roy­al Agri­cul­tur­al So­ci­ety of Eng­land.7

In the case of plants the method of pro­ce­dure was to grow some of the most im­por­tant crops of ro­ta­tion, each sep­arate­ly year af­ter year, for many years in suc­ces­sion on the same land, (a) with­out ma­nure, (b) with farm­yard ma­nure and (c) with a great va­ri­ety of chem­ical ma­nures; the same de­scrip­tion of ma­nure be­ing, as a rule, ap­plied year af­ter year on the same plot. Ex­per­iments on an ac­tu­al course of ro­ta­tion, with­out ma­nure, and with dif­fer­ent ma­nures, have al­so been made. Wheat, bar­ley, oats, beans, clover and oth­er legu­mi­nous plants, turnips, sug­ar beet, man­gels, pota­toes and grass crops have thus been ex­per­iment­ed up­on. In­ci­den­tal­ly there have been ex­ten­sive sam­pling and analysing of soils, in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to rain­fall and the com­po­si­tion of drainage wa­ters, in­quiries in­to the amount of wa­ter tran­spired by plants, and ex­per­iments on the as­sim­ila­tion of free ni­tro­gen.

Ce­re­als–Amongst the field ex­per­iments there is, per­haps, not one of more uni­ver­sal in­ter­est than that in which wheat was grown for fifty-​sev­en years in suc­ces­sion, (a) with­out ma­nure, (b) with farm­yard ma­nure and (c) with var­ious ar­ti­fi­cial ma­nures. The re­sults show that, un­like legu­mi­nous crops such as beans or clover, wheat may be suc­cess­ful­ly grown for many years in suc­ces­sion on or­di­nary arable land, pro­vid­ed suit­able ma­nures be ap­plied and the land be kept clean. Even with­out ma­nure the av­er­age pro­duce over forty-​six years, 1852-1897, was near­ly thir­teen bushels per acre, or about the av­er­age yield per acre of the wheat lands of the whole world. Min­er­al ma­nures alone give very lit­tle in­crease, ni­troge­nous ma­nures alone con­sid­er­ably more than min­er­al ma­nures alone, but the mix­ture of the two con­sid­er­ably more than ei­ther sep­arate­ly. In one case, in­deed, the av­er­age pro­duce by mixed min­er­als and ni­troge­nous ma­nure was more than that by the an­nu­al ap­pli­ca­tion of farm­yard ma­nure; and in sev­en out of the ten cas­es in which such mix­tures were used the av­er­age yield per acre was from over two to over eight bushels more than the av­er­age yield of the Unit­ed King­dom (as­sum­ing this to be about twen­ty-​eight bushels of 60 lb. per bushel) un­der or­di­nary ro­ta­tion. It is es­ti­mat­ed that the re­duc­tion in yield of the un­ma­nured plot over the forty years, 1852-1891, af­ter the growth of the crops with­out ma­nure dur­ing the eight pre­ced­ing years, was, pro­vid­ed it had been uni­form through­out, equiv­alent to a de­cline of one-​sixth of a bushel from year to year due to ex­haus­tion–that is, ir­re­spec­tive­ly of fluc­tu­ations due to sea­son. It is re­lat­ed that a vis­itor from the Unit­ed States, talk­ing to Sir John Lawes, said, “Amer­icans have learnt more from this field than from any oth­er agri­cul­tur­al ex­per­iment in the world.”

Ex­per­iments up­on the growth of bar­ley for fifty years in suc­ces­sion on rather heavy or­di­nary arable soil re­sult­ed in show­ing that the pro­duce by min­er­al ma­nures alone is larg­er than that with­out ma­nure; that ni­troge­nous ma­nures alone give more pro­duce than min­er­al ma­nures alone; and that mix­tures of min­er­al and ni­troge­nous ma­nure give much more than ei­ther used alone–gen­er­al­ly twice, or more than twice, as much as min­er­al ma­nures alone. Of min­er­al con­stituents, whether used alone or in mix­ture with ni­troge­nous ma­nures, phos­phates are much more ef­fec­tive than mix­tures of salts of potash, so­da and mag­ne­sia. The av­er­age re­sults show that, un­der all con­di­tions of ma­nur­ing–ex­cept­ing with farm­yard ma­nure–the pro­duce was less over the lat­er than over the ear­li­er pe­ri­ods of the ex­per­iments, an ef­fect part­ly due to the sea­sons. But the av­er­age pro­duce over forty years of con­tin­uous growth of bar­ley was, in all cas­es where ni­troge­nous and min­er­al ma­nures (con­tain­ing phos­phates) were used to­geth­er, much high­er than the av­er­age pro­duce of the crop grown in or­di­nary ro­ta­tion in the Unit­ed King­dom, and very much high­er than the av­er­age in most oth­er coun­tries when so grown. The re­quire­ments of bar­ley with­in the soil, and its sus­cep­ti­bil­ity to the ex­ter­nal in­flu­ences of sea­son, are very sim­ilar to those of its near al­ly, wheat. Nev­er­the­less there are dis­tinc­tions of re­sult de­pen­dent on dif­fer­ences in the habits of the two plants, and in the con­di­tions of their cul­ti­va­tion ac­cord­ing­ly. In the British Isles wheat is, as a rule, sown in the au­tumn on a heav­ier soil, and has four or five months in which to dis­tribute its roots, and so it gets pos­ses­sion of a wide range of soil and sub­soil be­fore bar­ley is sown in the spring. Bar­ley, on the oth­er hand, is sown in a lighter sur­face soil, and, with its short pe­ri­od for root-​de­vel­op­ment, re­lies in a much greater de­gree on the stores of plant-​food with­in the sur­face soil. Ac­cord­ing­ly it is more sus­cep­ti­ble to ex­haus­tion of sur­face soil as to its ni­troge­nous, and es­pe­cial­ly as to its min­er­al sup­plies; and in the com­mon prac­tice of agri­cul­ture it is found to be more ben­efit­ed by di­rect min­er­al ma­nures, es­pe­cial­ly phos­phat­ic ma­nures, than is wheat when sown un­der equal soil con­di­tions. The ex­haus­tion of the soil in­duced by both bar­ley and wheat is, how­ev­er, char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly that of avail­able ni­tro­gen; and when, un­der the or­di­nary con­di­tions of ma­nur­ing and crop­ping, ar­ti­fi­cial ma­nure is still re­quired, ni­troge­nous ma­nures are, as a rule, nec­es­sary for both crops, and, for the spring-​sown bar­ley, su­per­phos­phate al­so. Al­though bar­ley is ap­pro­pri­ate­ly grown on lighter soils than wheat, good crops, of fair qual­ity, may be grown on the heav­ier soils af­ter an­oth­er grain crop by the aid of ar­ti­fi­cial ma­nures, pro­vid­ed that the land is suf­fi­cient­ly clean. Ex­per­iments sim­ilar to the fore­go­ing were car­ried on for many years in suc­ces­sion at Rotham­st­ed up­on oats, and gave re­sults which were in gen­er­al ac­cor­dance with those on the oth­er ce­re­al crops.

Ad­di­tion­al sig­nif­icance to the val­ue of the above ex­per­iments on wheat and bar­ley is af­ford­ed by the fact that the same se­ries, with but slight mod­ifi­ca­tions, has al­so been car­ried out since 1876 at the Woburn (Bed­ford­shire) ex­per­imen­tal farm of the Roy­al Agri­cul­tur­al So­ci­ety of Eng­land, the soil here be­ing of light sandy char­ac­ter, and thus very dif­fer­ent from the heavy soil of Rotham­st­ed. The re­sults for the thir­ty years, 1877-1906, are in their gen­er­al fea­tures en­tire­ly con­fir­ma­to­ry of those ob­tained at Rotham­st­ed.

Root-​Crops.–Ex­per­iments up­on root-​crops–chiefly white turnips, Swedish turnips (swedes) and man­gels–have re­sult­ed in the es­tab­lish­ment of the fol­low­ing con­clu­sions. Both the quan­ti­ty and the qual­ity of the pro­duce, and con­se­quent­ly its feed­ing val­ue, must de­pend great­ly up­on the se­lec­tion of the best de­scrip­tion of roots to be grown, and on the char­ac­ter and the amount of the ma­nures, and es­pe­cial­ly on the amount of ni­troge­nous ma­nure em­ployed. At the same time, no hard-​and-​fast rules can be laid down con­cern­ing these points. In­de­pen­dent­ly of the nec­es­sary con­sid­er­ation of the gen­er­al econ­omy of the farm, the choice must be in­flu­enced part­ly by the char­ac­ter of the soil, but very much more by that of the cli­mate. Judg­ment found­ed on knowl­edge and aid­ed by care­ful ob­ser­va­tion, both in the field and in the feed­ing-​shed, must be re­lied up­on as the guide of the prac­ti­cal farmer. Over and above the great ad­van­tage aris­ing from the op­por­tu­ni­ty which the growth of root-​crops af­fords for the clean­ing of the land, the ben­efits of grow­ing the root-​crop in ro­ta­tion are due (1) to the large amount of ma­nure ap­plied for its growth, (2) to the large residue of the ma­nure left in the soil for fu­ture crops, (3) to the large amount of mat­ter at once re­turned as ma­nure again in the leaves, (4) to the large amount of food pro­duced, and (5) to the small pro­por­tion of the most im­por­tant ma­nuri­al con­stituents of the roots which is re­tained by store or fat­ten­ing an­imals con­sum­ing them, the rest re­turn­ing as ma­nure again; though, when the roots are con­sumed for the pro­duc­tion of milk, a much larg­er pro­por­tion of the con­stituents is lost to the ma­nure.

Legu­mi­nous Crops and the Ac­qui­si­tion of Ni­tro­gen.–The fact that the growth of a legu­mi­nous crop, such as red clover, leaves the soil in a high­er con­di­tion for the sub­se­quent growth of a grain crop–that, in­deed, the growth of such a legu­mi­nous crop is to a great ex­tent equiv­alent to the ap­pli­ca­tion of a ni­troge­nous ma­nure for the ce­re­al crop–was in ef­fect known ages ago. Nev­er­the­less it was not till near the ap­proach of the clos­ing decade of the 19th cen­tu­ry that the ex­pla­na­tion of this long-​es­tab­lished point of agri­cul­tur­al prac­tice was forth­com­ing. It was in the year 1886 that Hell­riegel and Wil­far­th first pub­lished in Ger­many the re­sults of in­ves­ti­ga­tions in which they demon­strat­ed that, through the agen­cy of mi­cro-​or­gan­isms dwelling in nodu­lar out­growths on the roots of or­di­nary legu­mi­nous plants, the lat­ter are en­abled to as­sim­ilate the free ni­tro­gen of the air. The ex­is­tence of the root nod­ules had long been rec­og­nized, but hith­er­to no ad­equate ex­pla­na­tion had been af­ford­ed as to their func­tion.

Since Hell­riegel’s strik­ing dis­cov­ery farm crops have been con­ve­nient­ly clas­si­fied as ni­tro­gen-​ac­cu­mu­lat­ing and ni­tro­gen-​con­sum­ing. To the for­mer be­long the or­di­nary legu­mi­nous crops–the clovers, beans, peas, vetch­es or tares, sain­foin, lucerne, for ex­am­ple–which ob­tain their ni­tro­gen from the air, and are in­de­pen­dent of the ap­pli­ca­tion of ni­troge­nous ma­nures, whilst in their roots they ac­cu­mu­late a store of ni­tro­gen which will ul­ti­mate­ly be­come avail­able for fu­ture crops of oth­er kinds. It is, in fact, ful­ly es­tab­lished that these legu­mi­nous crops ac­quire a con­sid­er­able amount of ni­tro­gen by the fix­ation of the free ni­tro­gen of the at­mo­sphere un­der the in­flu­ence of the sym­bi­ot­ic growth of their root-​nod­ule-​mi­crobes and the high­er plant. The ce­re­al crops (wheat, bar­ley, oats, rye, maize); the cru­cif­er­ous crops (turnips, cab­bage, kale, rape, mus­tard); the solana­ceous crops (pota­toes); the chenopo­di­aceous crops (man­gels, sug­ar-​beets), and oth­er non-​legu­mi­nous crops have, so far as is known, no such pow­er, and are there­fore more or less ben­efit­ed by the di­rect ap­pli­ca­tion of ni­troge­nous ma­nures. The field ex­per­iments on legu­mi­nous plants at Rotham­st­ed have shown that land which is, so to speak, ex­haust­ed so far as the growth of one legu­mi­nous crop is con­cerned, may still grow very lux­uri­ant crops of an­oth­er plant of the same nat­ural or­der, but of dif­fer­ent habits of growth, and es­pe­cial­ly of dif­fer­ent char­ac­ter and range of roots. This re­sult is doubt­less large­ly de­pen­dent on the ex­is­tence, the dis­tri­bu­tion and the con­di­tion of the ap­pro­pri­ate mi­crobes for the due in­fec­tion of the dif­fer­ent de­scrip­tions of plant, for the mi­cro-​or­gan­ism that dwells sym­bi­ot­ical­ly with one species is not iden­ti­cal with that which sim­ilar­ly dwells with an­oth­er. It seems cer­tain that suc­cess in any sys­tem in­volv­ing a more ex­tend­ed growth of legu­mi­nous crops in ro­ta­tions must be de­pen­dent on a con­sid­er­able vari­ation in the de­scrip­tion grown. Oth­er es­sen­tial con­di­tions of suc­cess will com­mon­ly in­clude the lib­er­al ap­pli­ca­tion of potash and phos­phat­ic ma­nures, and some­times chalk­ing or lim­ing for the legu­mi­nous crop. As to how long the legu­mi­nous crop should oc­cu­py the land, the ex­tent to which it should be con­sumed on the land, or the ma­nure from its con­sump­tion be re­turned, and un­der what con­di­tions the whole or part of it should be ploughed in–these are points which must be de­cid­ed as they arise in prac­tice. It seems ob­vi­ous that the lighter and poor­er soils would ben­efit more than the heav­ier or rich­er soils by the ex­tend­ed growth of legu­mi­nous crops.

Re­mark­able as Hell­riegel’s dis­cov­ery was, it mere­ly fur­nished the ex­pla­na­tion of a fact which had been em­pir­ical­ly es­tab­lished by the hus­band­man long be­fore, and had re­ceived most in­tel­li­gent ap­pli­ca­tion when the old four-​course (or Nor­folk) ro­ta­tion was de­vised. But it gave some im­pe­tus to the prac­tice of green ma­nur­ing with legu­mi­nous crops, which are equal­ly ca­pa­ble with such a crop as mus­tard of en­rich­ing the soil in hu­mus, whilst in ad­di­tion they bring in­to the soil from the at­mo­sphere a quan­ti­ty of ni­tro­gen avail­able for the use of sub­se­quent crops of any kind. In Cana­da and the Unit­ed States this ra­tio­nal em­ploy­ment of a legu­mi­nous crop for plough­ing in green is large­ly re­sort­ed to for the ame­lio­ra­tion of worn-​out wheat lands and oth­er soils, the con­di­tion of which has been low­ered to an un­re­mu­ner­ative lev­el by the re­peat­ed growth year af­ter year of a ce­re­al crop. The well-​known pa­per of Lawes, Gilbert and Pugh (1861), “On the Sources of the Ni­tro­gen of Veg­eta­tion with spe­cial ref­er­ence to the Ques­tion whether Plants as­sim­ilate free or un­com­bined Ni­tro­gen,” an­swered the ques­tion re­ferred to in the neg­ative. The at­ti­tude tak­en up lat­er on with re­gard to this prob­lem is set forth in the fol­low­ing words, which are quot­ed from the Mem­oran­da of the Rotham­st­ed Ex­per­iments, 1900 (p. 7):–

“Ex­per­iments were com­menced in 1857, and con­duct­ed for sev­er­al years in suc­ces­sion, to de­ter­mine whether plants as­sim­ilate free or un­com­bined ni­tro­gen, and al­so var­ious col­lat­er­al points. Plants of the gram­in­cous, the legu­mi­nous and of oth­er fam­ilies were op­er­at­ed up­on. The late Dr Pugh took a promi­nent part in this in­quiry. The con­clu­sion ar­rived at was that our agri­cul­tur­al plants do not them­selves di­rect­ly as­sim­ilate the free ni­tro­gen of the air by their leaves.

“In re­cent years, how­ev­er, the ques­tion has as­sumed quite a new as­pect. It now is–whether the free ni­tro­gen of the at­mo­sphere is brought in­to com­bi­na­tion un­der the in­flu­ence of mi­cro-​or­gan­isms, or oth­er low forms, ei­ther with­in the soil or in sym­bio­sis with a high­er plant, thus serv­ing in­di­rect­ly as a source of ni­tro­gen to plants of a high­er or­der. Con­sid­er­ing that the re­sults of Hell­riegel and Wil­far­th on this point were, if con­firmed, of great sig­nif­icance and im­por­tance, it was de­cid­ed to make ex­per­ime­nis at Rotham­st­ed on some­what sim­ilar lines. Ac­cord­ing­ly, a pre­lim­inary se­ries was un­der­tak­en in 1888; more ex­tend­ed se­ries were con­duct­ed in 1889 and in 1890; and the in­ves­ti­ga­tion was con­tin­ued up to the com­mence­ment of the year 1893. Fur­ther ex­per­iments re­lat­ing to cer­tain as­pects of the sub­ject were be­gun in 1898. The re­suits have shown that, when a soil grow­ing legu­mi­nous plants is in­fect­ed with ap­pro­pri­ate or­gan­isms, there is a de­vel­op­ment of the so-​called legu­mi­nous nod­ules on the roots of the plants, and, co­in­ci­den­rly, in­creased growth and gain of ni­tro­gen.”

The con­clu­sions of Hell­riegel and Wil­far­th have thus been con­firmed by the lat­er ex­pe­ri­ences of Rotham­st­ed, and since that time ef­forts have been di­rect­ed en­er­get­ical­ly to the prac­ti­cal ap­pli­ca­tion of the dis­cov­ery. This has tak­en the form of in­oc­ulat­ing the soil with the par­tic­ular or­gan­ism re­quired by the par­tic­ular kind of legu­mi­nous crop. To this end the en­deav­our has been made to pro­duce prepa­ra­tions which shall con­tain in portable form the or­gan­isms re­quired by the sev­er­al plants, and though, as yet, it can hard­ly be claimed that they have been gen­er­al­ly suc­cess­ful, the work done jus­ti­fies hopes that the prob­lem will even­tu­al­ly be solved in a prac­ti­cal di­rec­tion.

Grass.–An­oth­er field ex­per­iment of sin­gu­lar in­ter­est is that re­lat­ing to the mixed herbage of per­ma­nent mead­ow, for which sev­en acres of old grass land were set apart in Rotham­st­ed Park in 1856. Of the twen­ty plots in­to which this land is di­vid­ed, two were left with­out ma­nure from the out­set, two re­ceived or­di­nary farm­yard ma­nure for a se­ries of years, whilst the re­main­der each re­ceived a dif­fer­ent de­scrip­tion of ar­ti­fi­cial or chem­ical ma­nure, the same be­ing, ex­cept in spe­cial cas­es, ap­plied year af­ter year on the same plot. Dur­ing the grow­ing sea­son the field af­fords strik­ing ev­idence of the in­flu­ence of dif­fer­ent ma­nuri­al dress­ings. So much, in­deed, does the char­ac­ter of the herbage vary from plot to plot that the ef­fect may fair­ly be de­scribed as kalei­do­scop­ic. Re­peat­ed anal­yses have shown how great­ly both the botan­ical con­sti­tu­tion and the chem­ical com­po­si­tion of the mixed herbage vary ac­cord­ing to the de­scrip­tion of ma­nure ap­plied. They have fur­ther shown how dom­inant is the in­flu­ence of sea­son. Such, more­over, is the ef­fect of dif­fer­ent ma­nures that the gross pro­duce of the mixed herbage is to­tal­ly dif­fer­ent on the re­spec­tive plots ac­cord­ing to the ma­nure em­ployed, both as to the pro­por­tion of the var­ious species com­pos­ing it and as to their con­di­tion of de­vel­op­ment and ma­tu­ri­ty.

The Ro­ta­tion of Crops.

The growth, year af­ter year, on the same soil of one kind of plant un­fits it for bear­ing fur­ther crops of the kind which has ex­haust­ed it, and ren­ders them less vig­or­ous and more li­able to dis­ease. The farmer there­fore ar­ranges his crop­ping in such a way that roots, or legu­mi­nous crops, suc­ceed the ce­re­al crops.

It is not on­ly the con­di­tions of growth, but the us­es to which the dif­fer­ent crops are put, that have to be con­sid­ered in the case of ro­ta­tion. Thus the ce­re­al crops, when grown in ro­ta­tion, yield more pro­duce for sale in the sea­son of growth than when grown con­tin­uous­ly. More­over, the crops al­ter­nat­ed with the ce­re­als ac­cu­mu­late very much more of min­er­al con­stituents and of ni­tro­gen in their pro­duce than do the ce­re­als them­selves. By far the greater pro­por­tion of those con­stituents re­mains in cir­cu­la­tion in the ma­nure of the farm, whilst the re­main­der yields high­ly valu­able prod­ucts for sale in the forms of meat and milk. For this rea­son these crops are known as “restora­tive,” ce­re­als the pro­duce of which is sold off the farm be­ing classed as “ex­haus­tive.” With a va­ri­ety of crops, again, the me­chan­ical op­er­ations of the farm, in­volv­ing horse and hand labour, are bet­ter dis­tribut­ed over the year, and are there­fore more eco­nom­ical­ly per­formed. The op­por­tu­ni­ties which ro­ta­tion crop­ping af­fords for the clean­ing of the land from weeds is an­oth­er dis­tinct el­ement of ad­van­tage. Al­though many dif­fer­ent ro­ta­tions of crops are prac­tised, they may for the most part be con­sid­ered as lit­tle more than lo­cal adap­ta­tions of the sys­tem of al­ter­nat­ing root-​crops and legu­mi­nous crops with ce­re­al crops, as ex­em­pli­fied in the old four-​course ro­ta­tion–roots, bar­ley, clover, wheat.

Un­der this sys­tem the clover is ploughed up in the au­tumn, the ni­tro­gen stored up in its roots be­ing left in the soil for the nour­ish­ment of the ce­re­al crop. The fol­low­ing sum­mer the wheat crop is har­vest­ed, and an op­por­tu­ni­ty is af­ford­ed for ex­tir­pat­ing weeds which in the three pre­vi­ous years have re­ceived lit­tle check. Or, where the cli­mate is warm and the soil light, a “catch-​crop,” i.e. rye, vetch­es, win­ter-​oats or some oth­er rapid­ly-​grow­ing crop may be sown in au­tumn and fed off or oth­er­wise dis­posed of pri­or to the root-​sow­ing. On heavy soils, how­ev­er, the farmer can­not af­ford to cur­tail the time nec­es­sary for thor­ough cul­ti­va­tion of the land. The clean­ing pro­cess is car­ried on through.the next sum­mer by means of suc­ces­sive hoe­ings of the spring-​sown root-​crop. As turnips or swedes may oc­cu­py the ground till af­ter Christ­mas lit­tle time is left for the prepa­ra­tion of a seed-​bed for bar­ley, but as the lat­ter is a shal­low-​root­ed crop on­ly sur­face-​stir­ring is re­quired. Clover is sown at the same time or short­ly af­ter the ce­re­al and thus oc­cu­pies the land for two years.

The ro­ta­tions ex­tend­ing to five, six, sev­en or more years are, in most cas­es, on­ly adap­ta­tions of the prin­ci­ple to vari­ations of soil, al­ti­tude, as­pect, cli­mate, mar­kets and oth­er lo­cal con­di­tions. They are ef­fect­ed chiefly by some al­ter­ation in the de­scrip­tion of the root-​crop, and per­haps by the in­tro­duc­tion of the pota­to crop; by grow­ing a dif­fer­ent ce­re­al, or it may be more than one ce­re­al con­sec­utive­ly; by the growth of some oth­er legu­mi­nous crop than clover, since “clover-​sick­ness” may re­sult if that crop is grown at too short in­ter­vals, or the in­ter­mix­ture of grass seeds with the clover, and per­haps by the ex­ten­sion by one or more years of the pe­ri­od al­lot­ted to this mem­ber of the ro­ta­tion. What­ev­er the spe­cif­ic ro­ta­tion, there may in prac­tice be de­vi­ations from the plan of re­tain­ing on the farm the whole of the root-​crops, the straw of the grain crops and the legu­mi­nous fod­der crops (clover, vetch­es, sain­foin, &c;) for the pro­duc­tion of meat or milk, and, co­in­ci­dent­ly, for that of ma­nure to be re­turned to the land. It is equal­ly true that, when un­der the in­flu­ence of spe­cial lo­cal or oth­er de­mand–prox­im­ity to towns, easy rail­way or oth­er com­mu­ni­ca­tion, for ex­am­ple–the prod­ucts which would oth­er­wise be re­tained on the farm are ex­port­ed from it, the im­port of town or oth­er ma­nures is gen­er­al­ly an es­sen­tial con­di­tion of such prac­tice. This sys­tem of free sale, in­deed, fre­quent­ly in­volves full com­pen­sa­tion by pur­chased ma­nures of some kind. Such de­vi­ations from the prac­tice of mere­ly sell­ing grain and meat off the farm have much ex­tend­ed in re­cent years, and will prob­ably con­tin­ue to do so un­der the al­tered con­di­tions of British agri­cul­ture, de­ter­mined by very large im­ports of grain, in­creas­ing im­ports of meat and of oth­er prod­ucts of stock-​feed­ing, and very large im­ports of cat­tle-​food and oth­er agri­cul­tur­al pro­duce. More at­ten­tion is thus be­ing de­vot­ed to dairy pro­duce, not on­ly on grass farms, but on those that are main­ly arable.

The ben­efits that ac­crue from the prac­tice of ro­ta­tion are well il­lus­trat­ed in the re­sults ob­tained from the in­ves­ti­ga­tions at Rotham­st­ed in­to the sim­ple four-​course sys­tem, which may fair­ly be re­gard­ed as a self-​sup­port­ing sys­tem. Ref­er­ence may first be made to the im­por­tant min­er­al con­stituents of dif­fer­ent crops of the four-​course ro­ta­tion. Of phos­pho­ric acid, the ce­re­al crops take up as much as, or more than, any oth­er crops of the ro­ta­tion, ex­cept­ing clover; and the greater por­tion thus tak­en up is lost to the farm in the saleable prod­uct–the grain. The re­main­der, that in the straw, as well as that in the roots and the legu­mi­nous crops, is sup­posed to be re­tained on the farm, ex­cept­ing the small amount ex­port­ed in meat and milk. Of potash, each of the ro­ta­tion crops takes up very much more than of phos­pho­ric acid. But much less potash than phos­pho­ric acid is ex­port­ed in the ce­re­al grains, much more be­ing re­tained in the straw, whilst the oth­er prod­ucts of the ro­ta­tion–the root and legu­mi­nous crops–which are al­so sup­posed to be re­tained on the farm, con­tain very much more potash than the ce­re­als, and com­par­ative­ly lit­tle of it is ex­port­ed in meat and milk. Thus the whole of the crops of ro­ta­tion take up very much more of potash than of phos­pho­ric acid, whilst prob­ably even less of it is ul­ti­mate­ly lost to the land. Of lime, very lit­tle is tak­en up by the ce­re­al crops, and by the root-​crops much less than of potash; more by the legu­mi­nous than by the oth­er crops, and, by the clover es­pe­cial­ly, some­times much more than by all the oth­er crops of the ro­ta­tion put to­geth­er. Very lit­tle of the lime of the crops, how­ev­er, goes off in the saleable prod­ucts of the farm in the case of the self-​sup­port­ing ro­ta­tion un­der con­sid­er­ation. Al­though, there­fore, dif­fer­ent, and some­times very large, amounts of these typ­ical min­er­al con­stituents are tak­en up by the var­ious crops of ro­ta­tion, there is no ma­te­ri­al ex­port of any in the saleable prod­ucts, ex­cept­ing of phos­pho­ric acid and of potash; and, so far at least as phos­pho­ric acid is con­cerned, ex­pe­ri­ence has shown that it may be ad­van­ta­geous­ly sup­plied in pur­chased ma­nures.

Of ni­tro­gen, the ce­re­al crops take up and re­tain much less than any of the crops al­ter­nat­ed with them, notwith­stand­ing the cir­cum­stance that the ce­re­als are very char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly ben­efit­ed by ni­troge­nous ma­nures. The root-​crops, in­deed, may con­tain two or more times as much ni­tro­gen as ei­ther of the ce­re­als, and the legu­mi­nous crops, es­pe­cial­ly the clover, much more than the root-​crops. The greater part of the ni­tro­gen of the ce­re­als is, how­ev­er, sold off the farm; but per­haps not more than 10 or 15% of the of ei­ther the root-​crop of the clover (or oth­er for­age legu­mi­nous crop) is sold off in the an­imal in­crease of in milk. Most of the ni­tro­gen is the straw of the ce­re­als, and a very large pro­por­tion of that of the much more high­ly ni­tro­gen-​yield­ing crops, re­turns to the land as ma­nure, for the ben­efit of fu­ture ce­re­als and oth­er crops. As to the source of the ni­tro­gren of the root-​crops–the so-​called “restora­tive crops”–these are as de­pen­dent as any crop that is grown on avail­able ni­tro­gen with­in the soil, which is gen­er­al­ly sup­plied by the di­rect ap­pli­ca­tion of ni­troge­nous ma­nures, nat­ural or ar­ti­fi­cial. Un­der such con­di­tions of sup­ply, how­ev­er, the root-​crops, gross feed­ers as they are, and dis­tribut­ing a very large ex­tent of fi­brous feed­ing root with­in the soil, avail them­selves of a much larg­er quan­ti­ty of the ni­tro­gen sup­plied than the ce­re­al crops would do in sim­ilar cir­cum­stances. This re­sult is part­ly due to their pe­ri­od of ac­cu­mu­la­tion of ni­trates in it is the great­est. When a full sup­ply of both min­er­al con­stituents and ni­tro­gen is at com­mand, these root-​crops as­sim­ilate a very large amount of

TA­BLE XI.–The Weight and Av­er­age Com­po­si­tion of Or­di­nary Crops, in lb. per Acre.

Weight of Crop. To­tal Ni­tro Sul- Crop. At Pure -gen. phur. Potash. Har­vest. Dry. Ash. Wheat, grain, 30 bushels 1,800 1530 30 34 2.7 9.3 Wheat, straw 3,158 2653 142 16 5.1 19.5 To­tal crop 4,958 4183 172 50 7.8 28.8 Bar­ley, grain, 40 bushels 2,080 1747 46 35 2.9 9.8 Bar­ley, straw 2,447 2080 111 14 3.2 25.9 To­tal crop 4,527 3827 157 49 6.1 35.7 Oats, grain, 45 bushels 1,890 1625 51 34 3.2 9.1 Oats, straw 2,835 2353 140 18 4.8 37.0 To­tal crop 4,725 3978 191 52 8.0 46.1 Maize, grain, 30 bushels 1,680 1500 22 28 1.8 6.5 Maize, stalks, &c. 2,208 1877 99 15 .. 29.8 To­tal crop 3,888 3377 121 43 .. 36.3 Mead­ow hay, 1 1/2 ton 3,360 2822 203 49 5.7 50.9 Red Clover hay, 2 tons 4,480 3763 258 98 9.4 83.4 Beans, grain, 30 bushels 1,920 1613 58 78 4.4 24.3 Beans, straw 2,240 1848 99 29 4.9 42.8 To­tal crop 4,160 3461 157 107 9.3 67.1 Turnip, root, 17 tons 38,080 3126 218 61 15.2 108.6 Turnip, leaf 11,424 1531 146 49 5.7 40.2 To­tal crop 49,504 4657 346 110 20.9 148.8 Swedes, root, 14 tons 31,360 3349 163 70 14.6 63.3 Swedes, leaf 4,704 706 75 28 3.2 16.4 To­tal crop 36,064 4055 238 98 17.8(*) 79.7 Man­gels, root, 22 tons 49,280 5914 426 98 4.9 222.8 Man­gels, leaf 18,233 1654 254 51 9.1 77.9 To­tal crop 67,513 7568 680 149 14.0 300.7 Pota­toes, tu­bers, 6 tons 13,440 3360 127 46 2.7 76.5 Mag- Phosph- Chlor- Crop. So­da. Lime. ne­sia. ric Acid. ine. Sil­ica. Wheat, grain, 30 bushels 0.6 1.0 3.6 14.2 0.1 0.6 Wheat, straw 2.0 8.2 3.5 6.9 2.4 96.3 To­tal crop 2.6 9.2 7.1 21.1 2.5 96.9 Bar­ley, grain, 40 bushels 1.1 1.2 4.0 16.0 0.5 11.8 Bar­ley, straw 3.9 8.0 2.9 4.7 3.6 56.8 To­tal crop 5.0 9.2 6.9 20.7 4.1 68.6 Oats, grain, 45 bushels 0.8 1.8 3.6 13.0 0.5 19.9 Oats, straw 4.6 9.8 5.1 6.4 6.1 65.4 To­tal crop 5.4 11.6 8.7 19.4 6.6 85.3 Maize, grain, 30 bushels 0.2 0.5 3.4 10.0 0.2 0.5 Maize, stalks, &c. .. .. .. 8.0 .. .. To­tal crop .. .. .. 18.0 .. .. Mead­ow hay, 1 1/2 ton 9.2 32.1 14.4 12.3 14.6 56.9 Red Clover hay, 2 tons 5.1 90.1 28.2 22.9 9.8 7.0 Beans, grain, 30 bushels 0.6 2.9 4.2 22.8 1.1 0.4 Beans, straw 1.7 26.3 5.7 6.3 4.3 6.9 To­tal crop 2.3 29.2 9.9 29.1 5.4 7.3 Turnip, root, 17 tons 17.0 25.5 5.7 22.4 10.9 2.6 Turnip, leaf 7.5 48.5 3.8 10.7 11.2 5.1 To­tal crop 24.5 74.0 9.5 33.1 22.1 7.7 Swedes, root, 14 tons 22.8 19.7 6.8 16.9 6.8 3.1 Swedes, leaf 9.2 22.7 2.4 4.8 8.3 3.6 To­tal crop 32.0 42.4 9.2 21.7 15.1 6.7 Man­gels, root, 22 tons 69.4 15.9 18.3 36.4 42.5 8.7 Man­gels, leaf 49.3 27.0 24.2 16.5 40.6 9.2 To­tal crop 118.7 42.9 42.5 52.9 83.1 17.9 Pota­toes, tu­bers, 6 tons 3.8 3.4 6.3 21.5 4.4 2.6 (*) Cal­cu­lat­ed from a sin­gle anal­ysis on­ly.

car­bon from the at­mo­sphere, and pro­duce, be­sides ni­troge­nous food ma­te­ri­als, a very large amount of the car­bo­hy­drate sug­ar, as res­pi­ra­to­ry and fat-​form­ing food for the live stock of the farm. The still more high­ly ni­troge­nous legu­mi­nous crops, al­though not char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly ben­efit­ed by ni­troge­nous ma­nures, nev­er­the­less con­tribute much more ni­tro­gen to the to­tal pro­duce of the ro­ta­tion than any of the oth­er crops com­prised in it. It is the legu­mi­nous fod­der crops–es­pe­cial­ly clover, which has a much more ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od of growth, and much wider range of col­lec­tion with­in the soil and sub­soil, than any of the oth­er crops of the ro­ta­tion–that yield in their pro­duce the largest amount of ni­tro­gen per acre. Much of this is, doubt­less tak­en up as ni­trate, yet the di­rect ap­pli­ca­tion of ni­trate of so­da has com­par­ative­ly lit­tle ben­efi­cial in­flu­ence on their growth. The ni­tric acid is most like­ly tak­en up chiefly as ni­trate of lime, but prob­ably as ni­trate of potash al­so, and it is sig­nif­icant that the high ni­tro­gen-​yield­ing clover takes up, or at least re­tains, very lit­tle so­da. Ta­ble XI., from War­ing­ton’s Chem­istry of the Farm, 19th edi­tion (Vin­ton and Co.), will serve to il­lus­trate the sub­jects that have been dis­cussed in this sec­tion.

For fur­ther in­for­ma­tion on the rou­tine and de­tails of farm­ing, ref­er­ence may be made to the ar­ti­cles un­der the head­ings of the var­ious crops and im­ple­ments.

British Live Stock.

The num­bers of live stock in the Unit­ed King­dom are shown at five-​year­ly in­ter­vals in Ta­ble XII. Un­der hors­es are em­braced on­ly un­bro­ken hors­es and hors­es used sole­ly for agri­cul­ture (in­clud­ing mares kept for breed­ing). The high­est and low­est an­nu­al to­tals for the Unit­ed King­dom in the pe­ri­od 1875-1905 were the fol­low­ing:–

High­est. Low­est. Dif­fer­ence Hors­es 2,116,800 in 1905 1,819,687 in 1875 295,113 Cat­tle 11,674,019 in 1905 9,731,537 in 1877 1,942,482 Sheep 33,642,808 in 1892 27,448,220 in 1882 6,194,588 Pigs 4,362,040 in 1890 2,863,488 in 1880 1,498,552

Af­ter 1892 cat­tle, which in that year num­bered 11,119,417, and sheep de­clined con­tin­uous­ly for three years to the to­tals of 1895, the diminu­tion be­ing main­ly the re­sult of the mem­orable drought of 1803. Sheep, which num­bered 32,571,018 in 1878, de­clined con­tin­uous­ly to 27,448,220 in 1882–a loss of over five mil­lion head in five years. This was chiefly at­tributable to the rav­ages of the liv­er fluke which be­gan in the dis­as­trous­ly wet sea­son of 1879. Pigs, be­ing pro­lif­ic breed­ers, fluc­tu­ate more wide­ly in num­bers than cat­tle or sheep, for the dif­fer­ence of 1,498,552 in their case rep­re­sents one-​third of the high­est to­tal, where­as the dif­fer­ence is less than one-​sev­enth for hors­es. less than one-​sixth for cat­tle, and less than one-​fifth for sheep. The

TA­BLE XII.–Num­bers of Hors­es, Cat­tle, Sheep and Pigs in the Unit­ed King­dom.

Year. Hors­es. Cat­tle. Sheep. Pigs. 1875 1,819,687 10,162,787 33,491,948 3,495,167 1880 1,929,680 9,871,533 30,239,620 2,865,488 1885 1,909,200 10,868,760 30,086,200 3,686,628 1890 1,964,911 10,789,858 31,667,195 4,362,040 1895 2,112,207 10,753,314 29,774,853 4,238,870 1900 2,000,402 11,454,902 31,054,547 3,663,669 1905 2,116,800 11,674,019 29,076,777 3,601,659

rel­ative pro­por­tions–as dis­tin­guished from the ac­tu­al num­bers –in which stock are dis­tribut­ed over the sev­er­al sec­tions of the Unit­ed King­dom do not vary great­ly from year to year. Ta­ble XI­II., in which the to­tals for the Unit­ed King­dom in­clude those for the Chan­nel Is­lands and Isle of Man, il­lus­trates the pre­pon­der­ance of the sheep-​breed­ing in­dus­try in the dri­er cli­mate of Great Britain, and of the cat­tle-​breed­ing in­dus­try in the more hu­mid at­mo­sphere of Ire­land. In Great Britain in 1905, for ev­ery head of cat­tle there were about four head of sheep, where­as in Ire­land the cat­tle out­num­bered the sheep. Again. whilst Great Britain pos­sessed on­ly half as many cat­tle more than

TA­BLE XI­II.–Num­bers of Hors­es, Cat­tle, Sheep and Pigs in the Unit­ed King­dom in 1905.

1905. Hors­es. Cat­tle. Sheep. Pigs. Eng­land 1,204,124 5,020,936 14,698,018 2,083,226 Wales 161,923 738,789 3,534,967 211,479 Scot­land 206,386 1,227,295 7,024,211 130,214 Great Britain 1,572,433 6,987,020 25,257,196 2,424,919 Ire­land 534,875 4,645,215 3,749,352 1,164,316 Unit­ed King­dom8 2,116,800 11,674,019 29,076,777 3,601,659

Ire­land, she pos­sessed six times as many sheep. The cat­tle pop­ula­tion of Eng­land alone slight­ly ex­ceed­ed that of Ire­land. but cat­tle are more at home on the broad plains of Eng­land than amongst the hills and moun­tains of Wales and Scot­land. which are suit­able for sheep. Hence, whilst in Eng­land sheep were not three times as nu­mer­ous as cat­tle, in Wales they were near­ly five times, and in Scot­land near­ly six times as many. Great Britain had twice as many pigs as Ire­land, but the swine in­dus­try is main­ly En­glish and Irish, and Eng­land pos­sessed more than six times as many pigs as Wales and Scot­land to­geth­er. the num­ber in the last-​named coun­try be­ing par­tic­ular­ly small. One En­glish coun­ty alone, Suf­folk, main­tained more pigs than the whole of Scot­land.

British Im­ports of Live An­imals and Meat.

The stock-​breed­ers and gra­ziers of the Unit­ed Kin­udom have, equal­ly with the corn-​grow­ers, to face the brunt of for­eign com­pe­ti­tion.

Up tp 1896 store cat­tle were ad­mit­ted in­to the Unit­ed King­dom for the pur­pose of be­ing fat­tened, but un­der the Dis­eases of An­imals Act of that year an­imals im­port­ed since then have to be slaugh­tered at the place of land­ing. The di­men­sions of this trade are shown in Ta­ble XIV.

TA­BLE XIV.–Num­bers of Cat­tle, Sheep and Pigs Im­port­ed in­to the Unit­ed King­dom, 1891-1905.

Year. Cat­tle. Sheep. Pigs. 1891 507,407 344,504 542 1892 502,237 79,048 3826 1993 340,045 62,682 138 1894 475,440 484,597 8 1895 415,565 1,065,470 321 1896 562,553 769,592 4 1897 618,321 611,504 .. 1898 569,066 663,747 450 1899 503,504 607,755 .. 1900 495,645 382,833 .. 1901 495,635 383,594 .. 1902 419,488 293,203 .. 1903 522,546 354,241 .. 1904 549,532 382,240 .. 1905 565,139 183,084 150

The an­imals come main­ly from the Unit­ed States of Amer­ica, Cana­da and Ar­genti­na, and the traf­fic in cat­tle is more uni­form than that in sheep, whilst that in pigs seems prac­ti­cal­ly to have reached ex­tinc­tion. The quan­ti­ties of dead meat im­port­ed in­creased with great ra­pid­ity from 1891 to 1905, a cir­cum­stance large­ly due to the rise of the trade in chilled and frozen meat. Fresh beef in this form is im­port­ed chiefly from the Unit­ed States and Aus­trala­sia, fresh mut­ton from Aus­trala­sia and Ar­genti­na.

Ta­ble XV. shows how rapid­ly this trade ex­pand­ed dur­ing the decade of the ‘nineties. The col­umn head­ed ba­con and hams in­di­cates clear­ly enough that the im­ports of fresh meat did not dis­place those of pre­served pig meat, for the lat­ter ex­pand­ed from 4,715,000 cwt. to 7,784,000 cwt. dur­ing the decade. The col­umn for all dead meat in­cludes not on­ly the items tab­ulat­ed, but al­so

TA­BLE XV.–Quan­ti­ties of Dead Meat Im­port­ed in­to the Unit­ed King­dom, 1891-1905–Thou­sands of Cwt.

Year. Fresh Fresh Fresh Ba­con All Beef. Mut­ton. Pork. and Hams. Dead Meat. 1891 1921 1663 128 4715 9,790 1892 2080 1700 132 5135 10,300 1893 1808 1971 182 4187 9,305 1894 2104 2295 180 4819 10,610 1895 2191 2611 288 5353 11,977 1896 2660 2895 299 6009 13,347 1897 3010 3193 348 6731 14,729 1898 3101 3314 558 7684 16,445 1899 3803 3446 669 7784 17,658 1900 4128 3393 695 7444 17,912 1901 4509 3608 792 7633 18,764 1902 3707 3660 655 6572 16,971 1903 4160 4017 706 6298 17,498 1904 4350 3495 610 6696 17,517 1905 5038 3811 506 6817 18,680

the fol­low­ing, the quan­ti­ties stat­ed be­ing those for 1905:–Beef, salt­ed, 142,806 cwt.; beef, oth­er­wise pre­served, 598,030 cwt.; pre­served mut­ton, 30,111 cwt.; salt­ed pork, 205,965 cwt.; dead rab­bits, 656,078 cwt.; meat, un­enu­mer­at­ed, 875,032 cwt. The quan­ti­ties of these are rel­ative­ly small, and, ex­cept­ing rab­bits from Aus­tralia, they show no gen­er­al ten­den­cy to in­crease. The ex­tent to which these grow­ing im­ports were as­so­ci­at­ed with a de­cline in val­ue is shown in Ta­ble XVI.

The trend of the im­port trade in meat, live and dead (ex­clu­sive of rab­bits), may be gath­ered from Ta­ble XVII., in which are giv­en the an­nu­al av­er­age im­ports from the eight quin­quen­ni­al pe­ri­ods em­braced be­tween 1866 and 1905. An in­crease in live cat­tle ac­com­pa­nied a de­crease in live sheep and pigs, but the im­ports of dead meat ex­pand­ed fif­teen-​fold over the pe­ri­od,

The rate at which the trade in im­port­ed frozen mut­ton in­creased as com­pared with the in­dus­try in home-​grown mut­ton is il­lus­trat­ed in the fig­ures pub­lished an­nu­al­ly by Messrs W. Wed­del and Com­pa­ny, from which those for 1885 and 1890 and for each year from 1895 to 1906 are giv­en in Ta­ble XVI­II. The home-​grown is the es­ti­mat­ed dead weight of sheep and lambs slaugh­tered, which is tak­en at 40% of the to­tal num­ber of sheep and lambs re­turned each year in the Unit­ed King­dom. In the

TA­BLE XVI.–Av­er­age Val­ues of Fresh Meat, Ba­con and Hams Im­port­ed in­to the Unit­ed King­dom, 1891-1905–per Cwt.

Year. Fresh Fresh Fresh Ba­con. Hams. Beef. Mut­ton. Pork. s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d. 1891 42 1 39 6 47 6 37 11 46 4 1892 42 5 40 6 46 11 40 10 47 4 1893 42 4 39 3 50 0 53 0 58 5 1894 40 0 37 10 48 5 43 10 49 1 1895 39 0 35 2 46 1 39 0 44 11 1896 37 10 32 7 45 11 34 6 43 0 1897 38 5 30 3 44 0 35 5 42 8 1898 38 2 29 7 41 10 36 2 39 6 1899 38 8 31 7 41 11 35 10 41 5 1900 39 7 34 5 43 0 41 9 46 10 1901 39 6 36 7 43 4 47 1 48 8 1902 42 8 37 9 44 2 52 9 52 1 1903 40 3 39 0 44 1 52 10 55 1 1904 37 1 39 3 45 2 47 1 49 11 1905 35 6 38 6 46 0 46 6 47 4

im­port­ed col­umn is giv­en the weight of fresh (frozen) mut­ton and lamb im­port­ed, plus the es­ti­mat­ed dead weight of the sheep im­port­ed on the hoof for slaugh­ter. The quan­ti­ty im­port­ed in 1899 was dou­ble that in 1890, and quadru­ple that in 1885. More­over, in 1885 the im­port­ed prod­uct was on­ly about one-​sev­enth

TA­BLE XVII.–Av­er­age An­nu­al Im­ports of Cat­tle, Sheep and Pigs, and of Dead Meat, in­to the Unit­ed King­dom over eight 5-year­ly pe­ri­ods.

Pe­ri­od. Cat­tle. Sheep. Pigs. Dead Meat. No. No. No. Cwt. 1866-1870 194,947 610,300 64,827 1,155,867 1871-1875 215,990 864,516 74,040 3,134,175 1876-1880 272,745 938,704 44,613 5,841,913 1881-1885 387,282 974,316 24,355 6,012,495 1886-1890 438,098 800,599 19,437 7,681,729 1891-1895 448,139 407,260 967 10,436,549 1896-1900 549,818 607,086 91 15,785,354 1901-1905 510,468 319,272 30 17,384,366

as much as the home-​grown. where­as in 1890 it was more than one-​fourth, and in 1906 close on two-​thirds. This large im­port trade in fresh meat, which sprang up en­tire­ly with­in the last quar­ter of the 19th cen­tu­ry, has placed an abun­dance of cheap and whole­some food well with­in the reach of the great in­dus­tri­al

TA­BLE XVI­II.–Home Prod­uct and Im­ports of Sheep and Mut­ton in­to the Unit­ed King­dom–Thou­sands of Tons.

Year. Home- Im­port­ed. Year. Home- Im­port­ed. grown. grown. 1885 322 47 1900 332 179 1890 339 92 1901 330 191 1895 319 157 1902 322 191 1896 329 164 1903 318 2109 1897 327 175 1904 311 185 1898 333 182 1905 312 195 1899 339 187 1906 313 207

pop­ula­tions of the Unit­ed King­dom. At the same time it can­not. be gain­said that it has opened the way to fraud. Butch­ers have palmed off up­on their cus­tomers im­port­ed fresh meat as home-​grown, and se­cured a dis­hon­est prof­it by charg­ing for it the prices of the lat­ter, which are con­sid­er­ably in ex­cess of those of the im­port­ed prod­uct.

Sale of Cat­tle by Live Weight

In con­nex­ion with the in­ter­nal live stock trade of Great Britain at­ten­tion must be di­rect­ed to the Mar­kets and Fairs (Weigh­ing of Cat­tle) Act 1891. The ob­ject of this mea­sure is to re­place the old-​fash­ioned sys­tem of guess­ing at the weight of an an­imal by the sounder method of ob­tain­ing the ex­act weight by means of the weigh­bridge. The gra­zier buys and sells cat­tle much less fre­quent­ly than the butch­er buys them, so that the lat­ter is nat­ural­ly more skilled in es­ti­mat­ing the weight of a beast through the use of the eye and the hand. The re­sort to the weigh­bridge should put both on an equal­ity, and its use tends to in­crease. Un­der the act, as sup­ple­ment­ed by an or­der of the Board of Agri­cul­ture in 1905, there were in that year 26 sched­uled places in Eng­land and 10 in Scot­land, or 36 al­to­geth­er, from which re­turns were ob­tained. The num­bers of cat­tle (both fat and store) weighed at sched­uled places in 1893 and 190510 were re­spec­tive­ly 7.59 and 18% of those en­ter­ing those mar­kets. The num­bers for Scot­land are greater through­out than those for Eng­land, 72% of the fat cat­tle en­ter­ing the sched­uled mar­kets in Scot­land in 1905 (2) hav­ing been weighed, while in Eng­land the pro­por­tion was on­ly 20%. Lit­tle use is made of the weigh­bridge in sell­ing store-​cat­tle, sheep or swine. As the main ob­ject of the act is to ob­tain records of prices, it fol­lows that on­ly in so far as state­ments of the prices re­al­ized, to­geth­er with the de­scrip­tion of the an­imals in­volved, are ob­tained, is the full ad­van­tage of the statute se­cured. In 1905 the av­er­age price per cwt. for fat cat­tle in Great Britain was 32s. 11d. as com­pared with 35s. 2d. in 1900.

Food Val­ues and Ear­ly Ma­tu­ri­ty.

In the feed­ing ex­per­iments which have been car­ried on at Rotham­st­ed it has been shown that the amount con­sumed both for a giv­en live weight of an­imal with­in a giv­en time, and for the pro­duc­tion of a giv­en amount of in­crease, is, as cur­rent food stuffs go, mea­sur­able more by the amounts they con­tain of di­gestible and avail­able non-​ni­troge­nous con­stituents than by the amounts of the di­gestible and avail­able ni­troge­nous con­stituents they sup­ply. The non-​ni­troge­nous sub­stance (the fat) in the in­crease in live weight of an an­imal is, at any rate in great part, if not en­tire­ly, de­rived from the non-​ni­troge­nous con­stituents of the food. Of the ni­troge­nous com­pounds in food, on the oth­er hand, on­ly a small pro­por­tion of the whole con­sumed is fi­nal­ly stored up in the in­crease of the an­imal–in oth­er words, a very large amount of ni­tro­gen pass­es through the body be­yond that which is fi­nal­ly re­tained in the in­crease, and so re­mains for ma­nure. Hence it is that the amount of food con­sumed to pro­duce a giv­en amount of in­crease in live weight, as well as that re­quired for the sus­ten­ta­tion of a giv­en live weight for a giv­en time, should–pro­vid­ed the food be not ab­nor­mal­ly de­fi­cient in ni­troge­nous sub­stance–be char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly de­pen­dent on its sup­plies of di­gestible and avail­able non-​ni­troge­nous con­stituents. It has fur­ther been shown that, in the ex­er­cise of force by an­imals, there is a great­ly in­creased ex­pen­di­ture of the non-​ni­troge­nous con­stituents