Farmer's World

FARMER'S WORLD PERSPECTIVE: VALLEY TO VALLEY, COUNTRY TO COUNTRY Valley to Valley y BOND WITH THE EARTH Country to Country MIGRATIONS AND AGRICULTURE hy WAYNE D. RASMUSSEN QUESTIONS TO BE ANSWERED NUTRITIONAL STATUS CIVILIZATION began when man planted his first seed and tamed his first animal OF THE WORLD about 10 thousand years ago. Before that, for a million years, people lived WORLD SOURCES precariously on the fruits and seeds the OF PROTEIN women gathered and the small animals the men killed. In the few years since— few, as history measures time—agricul- POPULATION, INCOME, ture and civilization have advanced AND FOOD from valley to valley, country to country, hemisphere to hemisphere as men POTENTIALS FOR have shared seeds, tools, skills, knowl- edge, and hopes. FOOD PRODUCTION Very likely one of mankind's greatest achievements—planting and harvest- SOIL CONSERVATION, A ing crops—came about through a prim- WORLD MOVEMENT itive woman's observation while she was gathering seeds. She may have WATER HAS A noticed that the grain-bearing grasses grew up where seeds had been spilled KEY ROLE or stored. Then she herself placed some seeds in the ground and saw them grow. ENGINEERING IN Animal husbandry probably devel- AGRICULTURE oped when men succeeded in taming animals that they had wounded or driven into enclosures for slaughter, THE NEED FOR but it also is likely that women saved FERTILIZERS and tamed young animals. Farming and animal husbandry de- CHEMICALS IN veloped together for a long period. The herding of livestock came later. CROP PRODUCTION Agriculture originated first in the Middle East, perhaps in the grassy up- THE PLACE OF lands where the wild grains and the INSECTICIDES wild animals first to be domesticated were found. Excavations at the site of 712-224"—64 2 THE YEARBOOK OP AGRICULTURE 1964 the village of Jarmo in present-day the hoe gave it greater cutting power. Iraq indicate that 7 thousand years Similarly, a stick used to knock heads ago people there had two varieties of of grain loose from the stalks became a wheat, barley, sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, sickle when stone teeth were set along horses, and dogs. Tools were of pol- one edge. ished or chipped flint and obsidian, After animals were domesticated for a volcanic glass. The use of obsidian is food, they soon began to serve as evidence of early trade; its nearest beasts of burden. The next step, one known source is Lake Van in Turkey. never taken by the American Indian, Agriculture spread from the Middle was to fasten a heavy hoe behind an East to such areas as the Danubian animal and induce him to pull it Basin, the western and northern shores through the ground. of the Black Sea, the fertile crescent The climate of the Middle East and bordering the desert of Arabia, and the northern Africa gradually became valleys of the Indus in eastern India drier after man first discovered agricul- and the Hwang Ho in northern China. ture. Tribes and villages moved from The cultural pattern was much the poorly watered sites to sources of water same, except in the Americas, where as the centuries passed. At the same agriculture probably was discovered time, man began to irrigate his crop- independently. land wherever he had access to water. Our farming ancestors over the cen- The simplest device was to dip water turies accomplished feats that modern from a well or spring and pour it on the man has not yet duplicated. Drawing land. Many types of buckets, ropes, upon wild stock, they developed all the and, later, pulleys were used. A more major food plants and domestic ani- continuous flow was provided by the mals grown today. swipe, or shadoof, a long pole pivoted Wheat and barley were domesticated from a beam. One end of the pole held in the first area of agricultural develop- a bucket; the other held a heavy clay ment, southwestern Asia. Rice and ba- weight. A man pulled the bucket down nanas were developed later in south- to the water, and the clay weight then eastern Asia, and sorghum and millets lifted the filled container to a height in Africa. Maize, known as corn in where it could be emptied into a ditch. America, and potatoes were among A shadoof could raise about 600 gal- several major food crops developed in lons a day. the New World. The conduction of water through Food animals were first domesticated ditchçs from streams was practiced in Asia. The turkey was domesticated widely in the Middle East, where the in the New World. Eventually these ancient canal systems still can be seen. crops, many others, and animals mi- The periodic floods of the Nile in Egypt grated throughout the world. led to the development of systems of The accomplishments are even great- basins on the upper Nile to hold the er when we consider the tools the first waters. The basins were opened to per- farmers invented and used. A pointed mit the water to flow over the dyke- stick, the digging stick, was the last tool enclosed tracts when it was needed. of the food gatherer and the first of the Cereals were domesticated at an farmer. The stick, which had been used early age because they kept well and to grub up roots, served to dig holes for could be stored for use during lean seeds. Somebody added a crossbar, so years and winter. Even in his food- that a man could use his foot to drive gathering stage, man stored grain, the stick deeper into the soil. That was seeds, and nuts. Ancient Egyptians the origin of the spade. A stick that had preserved meat and fish by salting and a branch at one end and could be drying them in the sun. pulled through the ground was the first The discovery of metal and its uses hoe. Later a blade of stone or shell on brought the Neolithic Era to an end VALLEY TO VALLEY, COUNTRY TO COUNTRY and gave farmers sharper, stronger B.C., and in Germany and northern blades for hoes, plow points, and Europe through medieval times. sickles. The change to metal took place But farmers of ancient times did not slowly and in some areas—the Ameri- rely solely on fallowing to improve the cas, for example—not at all. Most soil. Ashes, animal manure, and com- cultures first used bronze, then iron. posts were used in the Middle East, Greece, and Rome. The Greeks and WHEN AGRICULTURE appeared in writ- Romans added lime in various forms. ten history in the time of the Egyp- The Roman farmers could draw tians, Greeks, and Romans, it was upon farm manuals by Cato the Cen- already a highly developed art, backed sor, writing about 200 B.C., or his suc- by years of progress based on observa- cessors, including Varro and Colu- tion and trial and error. Some early mella, for advice on ways to grow olives Chinese historians assigned the begin- and grapes and press the fruits for oil ning of agriculture in China to a and juice. Bread, oil, wine, figs, and specific year, 2737 B.C., when a grapes were staples in the ancient continuous record of political life was Mediterranean diet. started. Farming undoubtedly had been practiced before that particular IMPROVEMENTS spread slowly. year, but giving a new ruler credit for The methods the ancients used sur- teaching farming to the people indi- vived with modifications in many parts cates the value they placed on it. of the world for centuries. Agriculture enabled a man to pro- Fallowing, for example, was the basis duce more than enough food for for England's well-known two- and himself and his family. Some labor three-field systems of medieval times. thus could be released for the develop- The medieval English manor, with its ment of other aspects of civilization, villagers and lord, was divided into such as industry, the arts and sciences, garden, arable, meadow, pasture, and government, and writing. waste land. The arable land was di- Ancient civilizations, from the in- vided into two or three large fields, vention of writing to the beginning of which in turn were divided into strips the Christian Era, saw the adoption of an acre or less. Each villager would of systems of land use aimed at pre- farm a number of scattered strips. Un- serving or restoring soil fertility. The der the two-field system, half the land first farmers had practiced natural was left fallow. The other half was husbandry; that is, simply sowing and planted with winter and spring grain. reaping. They moved on to new land In the three-field system, one field was when yields declined. fallow, one was planted in wheat or Sometimes the increase in popula- rye, and one was planted in some tion that usually followed the establish- spring crop, such as barley, oats, peas, ment of a settled village economy made or beans. The three-field system per- it difiiicult to move to new land. In mitted as much as 50 percent greater several parts of the world farmers then productivity than the two-field system. turned to fallow. Every year, according Two other developments in northern to some plan which became fixed, part Europe during medieval times also in- of the land was given special treat- creased productivity: A heavy plow ment. No seed would be planted on it. that could turn the soil was invented. The weeds and grass would be plowed The invention of the horse collar per- under at least once during the growing mitted the effective use of horsepower.

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