266 Live stock. Various crops 



He addresses men of wealth, most of whom were proud of their posi- 

 tion as landlords, but presumably not unwilling to make their estates 

 more remunerative, provided the effort did not give them too much 

 trouble. This condition was the real difficulty ; and it is hard to believe 

 that Columella, when insisting on the frequent presence of the master's 

 eye, was sanguine enough to expect a general response. His attitude 

 towards pastoral industry seems decidedly less enthusiastic than that 

 of his predecessors. Stock 1 must be kept on the farm, partly to eat off 

 your own fodder-crops, but chiefly for the sake of supplying manure 

 for the arable land. In quoting Cato's famous saying on the profit- 

 ableness of grazing, he agrees that nothing pays so quickly as good 

 grazing, and that moderately good grazing pays well enough. But if, 

 as some versions have it, he really said that even bad grazing was the 

 next best thing for a farmer, Columella respectfully dissents. The 

 breeding and fattening of all manner of animals for luxurious tables 2 

 remains much the same as in the treatise of Varro. A curious caution 

 is given 3 in discussing the fattening of thrushes. They are to be fed 

 with ' dried figs beaten up with fine meal, as much as they can eat or 

 more. Some people chew the figs before giving them to the birds. 

 But it is hardly worth while to do this if you have a large number to 

 feed, for it costs money to hire 4 persons to do the chewing, and the 

 sweet taste makes them swallow a good deal themselves.' Now, why 

 hire labour for such a purpose ? Is it because slaves would swallow so 

 much of the sweet stuff that your thrushes would never fatten ? 



It is well known that importation of corn from abroad led to great 

 changes in Italian agriculture in the second century BC. The first was 

 the formation of great estates worked by slave-gangs, which seems to 

 have begun as an attempt to compete with foreign large-scale farming 

 in the general production of food-stuffs. If so, it was gradually dis- 

 covered that it did not pay to grow cereal crops for the market, 

 unscrupulous in slave-driving though the master might be. Therefore 

 attention was turned to the development on a larger scale of the exist- 

 ing culture of the vine and olive and the keeping of great flocks and 

 herds. Food for these last had to be found on the farm in the winter, 

 and more and more it became usual only to grow cereals as fodder for 

 the stock, of course including the slaves. No doubt there was a demand 

 for the better sorts, such as wheat, in all the country towns, but the 

 farms in their immediate neighbourhood would supply the need. That 

 Columella assumes produce of this kind to be normally consumed on 

 the place, is indicated by his recommending 5 barley as good food for 

 all live-stock, and for slaves when mixed with wheat. Also by his 



1 v\praef 3-5. a Also bee-keeping. 3 vin 10 3, 4. 



4 quia nee parvo conducuntur qui mandant...etc. 5 II 9 14, 16. 



