State Agricultural Society. 263 



cow; horses, asses, and mules being used only as beasts of burden. The 

 cattle, geese, and swine were kept in the agrarium or common pasture. 



So perfectly was the plowing performed, and so closely were the fur- 

 rows laid, that harrowing was dispensed with altogether. The farmer 

 had many holidays — going weekly to market and keeping zealously all 

 the religious and family festivals. After the Winter sowing, a whole 

 month was considered a holiday. 



At a very earl}' period there seems to have been no distinction made 

 between the rights of the large or small landholder in the common pas- 

 ture, which was the property of the State, and not of the community. 

 Day laborers were common, but there were few slaves, and as these 

 were of the same blood and race, cajHives from Etrurian or Volscian 

 neighborhoods, they were permitted and doubtless encouraged to work 

 out their freedom. 



A careful reading of Roman histoiy, especiallj- that part of it which 

 relates to the division of society into two great classes, patricians and 

 plebians, the differences that arose about the use of the common pasture, 

 the concentration of land and capital into fewer hands, dispossessing the 

 small farmers and cultivating estates with rural slaves, is necessary to a 

 right understanding of the agricultural condition of modern Europe. 



In the sixth century (Eoman era") Roman husbandly consisted in the 

 management either of the large estates of the aristocracy, or of the pas- 

 turage, i. e., of the public or common lands, or in the tillage of petty 

 holdings. Mommsen says, "the whole system was pervaded by the un- 

 8crupulousness characteristic of the power of capital. Slaves and cattle 

 were now placed on the same level; they were fed as long as the}' could 

 work, as a matter of economy, and sold when the}' were worn out, as a 

 matter of economy also." One of Cato's maxims was that a slave must 

 either work or sleep, and no attempt was ever made to attach the slaves 

 to their estate or to their master by any bond of human sympathy. The 

 abject position of the practical husbandman, not enslaved, is further 

 shown in Cato's description of what a steward ought to be. 



"He is the first to rise and the last to go to* bed; he is strict in deal- 

 ing with himself as well as with those under him, especially his stew- 

 ardess; is careful of his slaves and oxen; is always at home; never 

 borrows nor lends; makes no visits and gives no entertainments; troubles 

 himself about no worship save of the gods of the hearth and field; leaves 

 all dealings with the gods and with men to his master; he modestly 

 meets that master faithfully and simply, and conforms to his instruc- 

 tions." By this time, such of the yeomanry as were not swallowed up 

 by capital held small parcels of land, and were generally so poor that 

 the hoe was substituted for the plow in their labors. The farmers were 

 irretrievably ruined, and the more so that they gradually lost the moral 

 tone and frugal habits of the earlier ages of the republic. The other 

 branches of industrial arts were undeveloped, the force and energy of 

 the population being consumed in war and commerce. 



From the third to the fifth century of the Roman era capital had 

 waged its warfare against labor by withdrawing in the form of interest 

 on debt the revenues of the soil from the working farmers, and trans- 

 ferring the capital thence derived to the field of mercantile activity 

 opened up by the commerce of the Mediterranean. There was no longer 

 an agricultural class among the citizens, and though a high and even an 

 improved culture was maintained, it was simply the application of the 

 capitalist system to the produce of the soil. Cato, who regarded him- 

 self as a reformer, and had declared that farmers made the bravest men 



