by Thomas S. Osborne,
Associate Professor of Agronomy, University of Tennessee.
_To know what questions to put to Nature—that is 95 per cent of
scientific research._
—Whitehead
If man’s existence on the earth is compared to a calendar year, then he
began farming in the very early morning of December 30 and began
applying systematic knowledge to agriculture at 10:15 p.m. on December
31.
The first traces of man on the earth are dated at about one and
three-quarter million years ago. Plant life then was very much like
plant life today, but the animal population was quite different. Man
became a producer of plants and animals instead of merely a gatherer and
hunter about 8000 years ago. He has applied systematic study to
cultivated plants and animals for only 300 years.