Agricultural Economics (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Agricultural Economics<br><br>The Plough<br><br>From Egypt behind my oxen with their stately step and slow,<br>Northward and east and west I went to the desert sand and the snow;<br>Down through the centuries one by one, turning the clod to the shower,<br>Till there's never a land beneath the sun but has blossomed behind my power.<br><br>I slid through the sodden rice fields with my grunting humpbacked steers,<br>I turned the turf of the Tiber plain in Rome's imperial years,<br>I was left in the half-drawn furrow when Coriolanus came<br>Giving his farm for the forum's stir to save his nation's name.<br><br>Over the seas to the north I went; white cliffs and a seaboard blue;<br>And my path was glad in the English grass as my stout red Devons drew;<br>My path was glad in the English grass, for behind me rippled and curled,<br>The corn that was life to the sailor men that sailed the ships of the world.<br><br>And later I went to the north again, and day by day drew down<br>A little more of the purple hills to join to my kingdom brown;<br>And the whaups wheeled out to the moorland, but the gray gulls stayed with me,<br>Where the Clydesdales drummed a marching song with their feathered feet on the lea.<br><br>Then the new lands called me westward; I found on the prairies wide<br>A toll to my stoutest daring, and a foe to test my pride;<br>But I stooped my strength to the stiff black loam, and I found my labor sweet,<br>As I loosened the soil that was trampled firm by a million buffaloes' feet.<br><br>Then further away to the northward; outward and outward still<br>(But idle I crossed the Rockies for there no plough will till!),<br>Till I won to the plains unending, and there on the edge of the snow<br>I ribbed them the fenceless wheat fields, and taught them to reap and sow.<br><br>The sun of the southland called me; I turned her the rich brown lines,<br>Where her Parramatta peach trees grow and her green Mildura vines;<br>I drove her cattle before me, her dust and her dying sheep,<br>I painted her rich plains golden, and taught her to sow and reap.<br><br>From Egypt behind my oxen, with stately step and slow,<br>I have carried your weightiest burden, ye toilers that reap and sow!<br>I am the ruler, the King, and I hold the world in fee;<br>Sword upon sword may ring, but the triumph shall rest with me!<br><br>Will Ogilvie.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.