ABSTRACT
The word agriculture, which is used to comprise all the operations of the farmer, means properly the cultivation of the soil, and though the livestock interest has gradually eclipsed that of tillage, it has always been customary to give the precedence to the latter in all books on husbandry. Now, as is well known, wheat sown continually on the same soil tends to deteriorate, and farmers therefore change their seed periodically. But it does not follow that the seed is brought from a different locality, and a farmer who has both light and heavy soil to plough will not need to buy seed from outside for two or three years. Home-grown wheat is offered at all seasons of the year. It used to be said that a farmer who had no wheat to sell was looked on with suspicion as a man who had been pressed by his creditors and forced to realize.
