Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 February 1910 — EARLIEST FARMING CENTERS. [ARTICLE]

EARLIEST FARMING CENTERS.

Day of Harvest in Habylonia, When All Debt* Were Paid. In the wonderful restoration of the ancient past which has resulted from the work of the explorer in the East nothing is more astonishing than the knowledge we have gained of the social life, manners customs of the undent inhabitants of Egypt, Babylonia and other Eastern centers of civilization. 'ln this respect the discoveries in Babylonia have been far more enlightening than any others, for in that land education was more general, extending to the lower grades of the community, and the literary tendency of the people leading them to have a written record for any event supplies us with a mass of details of the affairs of daily life-far more vivid than in the case of any other people of antiquity. Babylonia was the garden of the ancient East, as later tradition made it the site of the “Garden of Eden.” and the ancient Sumerian population was the earliest organized community of agriculturists of whom we have record, says W. St. Chad Boscawen in the London Globe. The nature of the soil, a deep alluvial, made it a land of the richest kind for the agriculturist, and nature needed but little assistance at the hand of man to bring forth her richest and best to supply his wants. Although not the indigenous home of wheat, that being undoubtedly the slopes of the mountain of Luristan and the plain of Elam, where settlements of prehistoric harvesters have been found, it soon became the cornfield par excellence of western Asia, and in later times the granary of the Persian empire. The early Sumerian settlers brought with them from the home land on the east of the Tigris the first elements of agriculture and soon the plains of lower Chaldea became covered with corn fields. One of the oldest inscriptions we possess, that of Manishtu-su, king of Kish, which must date back te about B. C. 4000, if not earlier, is a purely agricultural record and shows that the principles of agriculture were already developed and systematized. The value of land was estimated on corn valuation, and the rights of landlord and the tenant were clearly defined. Moreover, the ancient records shows that the palentlar of those early inhabitants of Chaldea was agricultural and started from the autumnal equinox—the period of the “greater harvest.” In Babylonia thefood problem dominated all the affairs of life. In remote prehistoric times man had been the pensioner of nature, dependent on the supplies she granted him, but now man by his invention of agricultural implements had conquered nature and by his assistance rendered her far more lavish, in according him supplies for his wants. The extreme fertility of the Chaldean plain soon made it the corn producing center of the whole of western Asia, and as her food was the equivalent of money it soon became the predominant partner in the world of commerce. As a result of the old primitive barter system payments in kind ruled instead of cash payments and corn became money. Surplus supplies of corn or other foodstuffs became income or capital and could minister to the luxury of the successful agriculturist. With the rise of the village community and later the city kingdom this increase of wealth became a source of revenue on which the heads of the community could draw for communal wants, and in this manner there grew up the first and greatest system of revenue ever found in ancient oriental lands. Ancient Babylonia possessed one feature in which it closely resembled our own country in the middle ages, the bulk of the property was in religious hands. That is, the various districts into which the land was divided were each the fief of the province god. The tables from Tel-lo show that all that district was the fief of the god Nin-glr-su; of Nippur, the fief of Entil or the elder "Bel”; of Sippara, the sun god, and all the revenues were collected by the temple officials and paid into the temple treasury and classed as “the wealth or property of the god.” There were many villages and small towns in the fief of the province gods, and their revenues were collected by resident collectors and either remitted to the head city or stored in the local storehouse, and a very careful account of them sent to headquarters. AH the dues were collected at one time, on “the day of harvest." When the harvest time came it was indeed a time of business pressure, the culmination of the year, the great day of reckoning. /The deeds which have been recovered from the treasures of the Babylonian temples amply prove this. Everything became due on the day of harvest. Thus a loan tablet from Nippur says: “Five and a half shekels, which X borrowed from the sun god to the sun god he shall pay back with the interest on the day of harvest)” All small tradesmen were paid at harvest, and among them the obliging publican, who had given credit for beer during the previous months to his customers. All wages were paid at harvest time. When it comes to jealousy and crowing a man can pat it ail over a rooar,aar.: Flatter/a man If you want him to have Implicit faith In your Judgment.