ANCIENT AGRICULTURAL LITERATURE. 137 



reader that the " viminese crates " mentioned in the first 

 Georgic were not, as " the learned commentator Popma," 

 in his controversy with Servius, supposes, dung-carts, but 

 clod-crushers ; and that the " rastrum " of Columella and 

 others was identical with the " quadridens " of Cato, and 

 was the implement used by the " occator." Dickson ap- 

 pears to us to have generally succeeded in making out his 

 point, though in some obscure passages he seems rather to 

 have been determin ed to make a meaning than to have suc- 

 ceeded in finding one, and in those cases he is not very 

 scrupulous about altering the text of his author. On the 

 whole, however, he has evolved an intelligible and consis- 

 tent system of agriculture as pursued by the Romans, and 

 has brought before us some incidental but very interesting 

 notices of the modes of cultivation practised in Greece, 

 Sicily, Gaul, and Britain. The Reverend thresher has 

 beat out the grain, but has left it jumbled up with the 

 straw and chaff in one confused heap, which we will en- 

 deavour to reduce into more marketable dimensions. But 

 before we do so we must shortly notice the more recent 

 labourer in the same field, Mr. Wren Hoskyns. This 

 author ventures on a far larger range than his predecessor ; 

 and though his book only consists of 160 very small pages, 

 he finds room for a great deal of mild moralizing, and for 

 many and rather ambitious dissertations, which have no 

 very close connexion with the " History of Agriculture in 

 Ancient, Mediaeval, and Modern Times." 



Mr. Hoskyns is evidently a well-informed and accom- 

 plished man. He appears to have a genteel knowledge of 

 practical agriculture, though in that respect he cannot be 

 compared with our hard-handed pastor. The persevering 

 reader will have to follow him through page after page of 

 simple reflections, very nicely got up and prettily worded, 

 without encountering a syllable of which he can disapprove. 

 It is a relief to find something to deny or even to doubt ; 

 and we present the following passage as a favourable spe- 

 cimen of Mr. Hoskyns 's more adventurous flights. Though 



