ANCIENT AGRICULTURAL LITERATURE. 135 



were left by their author ; painfully deficient in the cur- 

 tailment, condensation, and arrangement which they would 

 have received if he had superintended their publication. 

 The mere omission of duplicate, triplicate, and quadrupli- 

 cate long quotations from ancient authors, accompanied at 

 each repetition by a diffuse translation and commentary, 

 would reduce " The Husbandry of the Ancients" from two 

 volumes to one. To the anonymous editor we are indebted 

 for nothing but a very common-place dedication, and a 

 meagre account of Mr. Dickson contained in six pages. 



Agricultural literature occupied a far higher position 

 among the ancients than it has hitherto attained in our 

 day. A mere enumeration of the names of those authors 

 whose works remain, and the testimony which many of 

 them bear to the merits of Mago the Carthaginian, whom 

 they declare to have been the father of agricultural litera- 

 ture, will leave no doubt on the question of precedence. 

 To Hesiod, Theophrastus, Xenophon, Cato, Varro, Virgil, 

 Columella, Pliny, and Palladius, whom have we to oppose? 

 A few notices of agriculture may be found in Lord Bacon's 

 works, and Sir H. Davy wrote an agricultural book, which 

 was by no means one of his most successful efforts ; and 

 here, as far as we know, our first class must end abruptly. 

 We are not insensible to the merits of Arthur Young and 

 Jethro Tull, but we can hardly put them on a par with Cato 

 and Pliny ; and we doubt whether we could not even now 

 farm more successfully by following the directions of the 

 two ancients than of the two moderns. We have a few 

 pastoral and bucolic poets to whom we must oppose Theo- 

 critus and Homer, who are not included in our former list 

 and who are infinitely superior to any of them, with the 

 single exception of Hogg, as practical shepherds, neat- 

 herds, and swine-herds. Nor is a study of these old writers 

 a mere matter of fancy. We could take up almost any 

 one of them and begin with him the agricultural year 

 prepare the field sow the crop weed it reap it har- 

 vest it thresh and winnow it ascertain the weight per 



