ABSTRACT
Science, or pure science, is concerned with the discovery of truth; technology is concerned with the invention of new things and processes or the improvement of older ones. The eighteenth century witnessed a closer rapprochement between science and technology. The eighteenth century witnessed a considerable measure of progress in European agriculture. The progress was mainly empirical, by the method of trial and error. But agricultural processes were improved, new implements were invented, and the foundations of a scientific study of agricultural phenomena were laid by the close observation and record of agricultural experiments and results. Seventeenth-century agriculture was characterized by certain rigidity in the customary divisions and treatment of land. With regard to agricultural implements, the eighteenth century has to its credit the invention of some new ones and the improvement of old ones. Grain and small seeds generally used to be broadcast by hand, the seeds being scattered more or less uniformly over the whole area under cultivation.
