ANCIENT AGRICULTURAL LITERATURE. 187 



of the same districts, the same soils, and constantly deplore 

 diminished produce. And yet they do not say that the 

 land received fewer ploughings, or hoeings, or weedings ; 

 that manure was less carefully husbanded ; or that a less 

 scientific course of cropping was adopted. 



This falling off, having reached its crisis in the time of 

 the later writers, evidently puzzled them sorely. Columella 

 commences his treatise with it, and says that the fault 

 cannot be in the earth. She must have the same principles 

 of fertility as heretofore so he has recourse to absenteeism 

 and luxury, and such other explanations as pass muster 

 with us in settling an Irish or West Indian difficulty now- 

 a-days. Pliny only discusses the mystery " QuaBnam 

 ergo tanta3 ubertatis causa erat ? " It was either, he says, 

 that the earth was then cultivated by the hands of great 

 generals, and rejoiced" ut fas est credere" in a plough 

 crowned with laurel, guided by a ploughman who had re- 

 ceived a triumph ; or that these men planned their course 

 of crops with as much judgment as their campaigns, and 

 laid out their fields with the same diligence as their camps. 

 One reason is about as good as the other. The latter might 

 be applicable to the four acres of Cincinnatus or Attilius 

 Regulus, but we are slow to believe that nature produces 

 a generation of men who are all giants in mind, body, or 

 spirit ; and we have no doubt that the age of Cincinnatus 

 produced the usual proportion of husbandmen of only or- 

 dinary intelligence and energy. We believe that failure 

 was inherent in the system. Roman agriculture was founded 

 on the assumption that culture alone would enable land to 

 export corn continually for an indefinite period. They 

 acted tenderly on the assumption, and said, every other year, 

 " alternis annis." A constantly-diminishing produce 

 diminishing probably in proportion to the length of time 

 during which the assumption had been put to the test 

 proclaimed its failure. On this assumption, Tull at- 

 tempted to base a system; but it did not survive him. Mr. 

 Huxtable enunciates it as a principle, and founds calcula- 



