ANCIENT AGRICULTURAL LITERATURE. 185 



our acknowledgments to Dickson for the assistance which 

 he has given us, we are bound to say that, for many of our 

 statements, he is not answerable. Some things which he 

 either missed, or purposely passed by, we have brought 

 forward from the men of old ; and in several cases in 

 which he has appeared to us to misconceive their meaning, 

 we have, after due consideration, followed our own opinion, 

 without making the difference between us matter of con- 

 troversy. His translations we have generally discarded. 

 Several matters on which he dwells largely, but which did 

 not seem to have much connection with British agriculture, 

 we have omitted altogether. Equally, we have omitted 

 the constantly-recurring directions of the ancients to 

 govern ourselves, in sowing various seeds, or in eradicating 

 particular weeds, by certain lunar and sidereal influences ; 

 and another class of directions, as a sample of which 

 we may give, that a seed hopper ought to be lined with 

 the skin of an hyena. Our reverend author is scandalised 

 that some modern sceptics should have treated these maxims 

 as superstitious, and is at much pains to prove that they 

 are, or may be, consistent with sound reason. We by no 

 means sneer at them, calling to mind that the best house- 

 keeper we ever knew would never allow a pig to be killed 

 when the moon was waning, because bacon cured under 

 those influences would not, to use her own phrase, " swell 

 in the pot." 



We are quite aware how many unexpected matters may 

 turn up when we come to reduce a system of agriculture, 

 which is depicted on paper, to the rough realities of prac- 

 tice. But the Roman authors appear to us to have this 

 peculiarity, that they never look forward, but always back- 

 ward. Their anxiety is not to promote progress, but to 

 guard against declension. It is enough for Columella and 

 Palladius to cultivate as Cato and Varro directed, and 

 Cato and Varro are satisfied to appeal to the Greek writers 

 and Mago. No one of them, as far as we recollect, claims 

 any improvement as of recent discovery. We have eras 



