The Roll of Inventions too Vast for Enumeration. 1 CHAPTER II. AGRICULTURE AND ITS IMPLEMENTS. The Egyptians the Earliest and Greatest Agriculturists.-- Rome and Farming.--Cato, Varro, Virgil.--Columella.--Pliny.-- Palladius.--The Decline of Agriculture.--Northern Barbarism.-- Lowest Ebb in the Middle Ages.--Revival in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries.--With Invention of Printing.--Publications then, Concerning.--Growth in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.--Jethro Tull.--Arthur Young.--Washington.-- Jefferson.--The Art Scientifically Commenced with Sir Humphry Davy’s Lectures on Soils and Plants, 1802-1812.--Societies.-- “Book Farming” and Prejudice of Farmers.--A Revisit of Ruth and Cincinnatus at Beginning of Nineteenth Century.--Their Implements still the Common Ones in Use.--The Plough and its History.--Its Essential Parts and their Evolution to Modern Forms.--Originated in Holland.--Growth in England and America.--Small, Jefferson, Newbold.--Lord Kames’ Complaint.-- The American Plough.--Cutting Disks.--Steam Ploughs: Implements for Preparing the Soil for Planting.--Various Forms of Harrows. 13 CHAPTER III. AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS. The Sowing of Grain.--The Sower of the Parables.--His Art and its Defects Lasted until Nineteenth Century.--The Problems to be Solved.--Assyrian and Chinese Seeding Implements.--India.-- Italy First to Introduce a Grain Sowing Machine, Seventeenth Century.--Zanon’s Work on Agriculture, 1764.--Austria and England.--A Spaniard’s Invention.--Don Lescatello.--The Drill of Jethro Tull.--A Clergyman, Cooke’s Machine.--Washington and Others.--Modern Improvements in Seeders and their Operation and Functions.--Force Feed and Gravity Feed.--Graduated Flow.-- Divided Feeds for Separate Grains and Fertilizing Material.-- Garden Ploughs and Seeders.--Gangs of Heavy Ones.--Operated by Steam.--Corn Planters.--Walking and Riding.--Objects of Proper Planting.--How Accomplished by Machinery.--Variety of Machines.--Potatoes and the Finest Seeds.--Transplanters.-- Cultivators.--Their Purposes and Varieties.--Primitive and Modern Toilers.--Millet.--Tillers of the Soil no Longer “Brothers of the Ox.” 23 CHAPTER IV. AGRICULTURAL INVENTIONS.