Agriculture is probably the oldest work done by man. In the Bible, the
first man born on earth—Cain, the son of Adam and Eve—was "a tiller of
the soil," in other words a farmer. Through most of these thousands of
years, nearly everyone had to be a farmer because a farmer could not
raise much more food than was needed to feed him and his family.
Agriculture is probably the oldest work done by man. In the Bible, the first man born on earth—Cain, the son of Adam and Eve—was "a tiller of the soil," in other words a farmer. Through most of these thousands of years, nearly everyone had to be a farmer because a farmer could not raise much more food than was needed to feed him and his family. Even in the days of the American Revolution, less than two hundred years ago, eight out of every ten Americans were farmers. Today, only one American out of seventeen is a farmer. But that one American working on a farm today can raise twice as much food as eight farmers could in those days. But if you could have spent even a day with one of those ancient farmers, and could compare it with what you would see today on a modern farm of the United States with its bags of scientifically created seed, and its tractors to prepare the soil for planting, and its seeders to plant the seed at mathematically proper spots, and its other machines to cultivate the soil and kill the pests that destroy crops, and reap the crop when it is grown and transport it to the barn and then to the market, you would think you were in two different worlds— and so you would be. It took man a long time to learn how to raise his food in the ground.
First, man had to learn that plants would give him food. Then he learned that the plants would grow better if the soil around them were loosened, and he would hack away at the soil with tools that he had made by chipping off pieces of stone until a piece with sharp edges for digging would remain. One season it would not rain, and the plants would die, and from this he learned that plants need water, so in dry seasons he would carry water from a nearby pond or stream and throw it on the soil. He learned that plants grow from seeds, and that freed him to move to places where plants were not already growing, because he could take the seed with him, and plant it, and make his food grow where it had not grown before. Even later than this, he learned that some plants that were dry and hard and not worth eating could be made into good food if they were made hot enough for long enough, and out of this new knowledge came the art of cooking. Bit by bit, slowly at first but with ever-increasing rapidity, he added to this earliest knowl edge until agriculture became what it is today.
