136 AGRICULTURE. 



bushel, and the yield in flour or meal market it buy, 

 feed, clothe, and lodge the agricultural slaves purchase, 

 rear, and sell the cattle and fowls collect and prepare 

 the manure and make out, at the end of the year, a more 

 accurate balance-sheet than could be furnished by half the 

 farmers in Great Britain. For all this we are mainly in- 

 debted to Mr. Dickson. The agricultural writers had 

 received their fair share of criticism ; but it was not likely 

 that passages which were rendered obscure by obsolete 

 names and technical phrases would be elucidated by scho- 

 liasts and commentators albeit doctors and professors 

 eruditissimi necnon illustrissimi to whom a modernised 

 version would have conveyed a very imperfect idea, on 

 account of their total ignorance of the art which was the 

 subject of discussion. Philology could not elucidate the 

 operations of the " vervactor " and " imporcitor" to Madame 

 Dacier, nor could the Muse explain to Mr. Martyn the 

 connexion between the "buris" and the " stiva." Mr. 

 Dickson thus alludes to some of his controversies with 

 these profound men : 



" As all the commentators explain the passages con- 

 cerning ploughs in a sense different from what I have 

 done, it is with great diffidence that I deliver my opinion. 

 At the same time I use the freedom to observe, that it is 

 not in the least surprising that the whole class of com- 

 mentators should go wrong in a matter of this kind, as 

 there are none of these learned persons that seem to have 

 given themselves the trouble to acquire any knowledge of 

 the nature and construction of ploughs, or of the various 

 uses of the several parts." 



He himself brings to his task competent classical know- 

 ledge, an intimate acquaintance with the existing practices 

 of agriculture, and abundant zeal and industry. Nothing, 

 however, can exceed the dulness of his dissertations. For 

 instance, eleven dreary pages, and the collation of more 

 than thirty passages from Cato, Varro, Virgil, Columbia, 

 Pliny, Saserna, and Palladius, will convince the persevering 



