Book I. AGIUCSULTURE OF ANTIQUITY. HT 



autumn, another in spring, and a tliird immediately brfore sowing the seed-. Manures 

 were applied : in Homer, an old king is found manuring his fields with his own hands ; ; 

 and the invention of manures is ascribed by Pliny to the Grecian king Augeas. The- 

 ophrastus enumerates six different species of manures ; and adds, that a mixture of soils 

 produces the same effects as manure. Clay, he says, should be mixed with sand, and 

 sand with clay. The seed was sown by hand, and covered with a rake. Corn was reaped 

 with a sickle ; bound in sheaves ; carted to a well-prepared threshing-floor, in an airy 

 situation, where it might be threshed and fanned by the wind, as is still practised in 

 modern Greece, Italy, and other countries of the continent Afterwards it was laid up 

 in bins, or chests, or granaries, and taken out as wanted by the family to be pounded in 

 mortars, or quern-mills into meal. Thorns and other plants for hedges were procured 

 from the woods, as we find from a passage in Homer, in whicli he represents Ulysses as 

 finding Laertes digging and preparing to plant a row of quick-sets. (Odt/ss. lib. xxiv.) 



24. The imj)lements enumerated by Hesiod, are a plough, of which he recommends 

 two to be provided in case of accident ; a cart with two low wheels, and ten spans 

 (seven feet six inches) in width. The plough consisted of three parts; the share-beam, 



the draught-pole, and the plough-tail. The share-beam is to be made of oak, and tlie 

 other parts of elm or bay : they are to 

 \k joined firm with nails. Antiquarians 

 are not agreed as to the exact form of 

 this implement. Gouguet conjectures 

 it may not have been unlike one still 

 in use in the same countries, and in the 

 south of France : others, with greater 

 probability, refer to the more simple 

 plough still in use in Magna Grecia and 

 Sicily {fig. 7.), originally Greek colonies. 

 The rake, sickle, and oxen-goad, are men- 

 tioned ; but nothing said of their construction, or of spades, or other manual implements. 



25. The beasts of labor mentioned, are oxen and mules : the former were most common ; 

 and it would appear, from a passage in Homer {11. lib. xiii. v. 704.) were yoked by the 

 horns. Four and a half years is recommended as the best age for purchasing oxen : in 

 winter, both oxen and mules were fed under cover, on hay and straw, mast, and the 

 leaves of vines and various trees. 



26. The most desirable age for a ploughman is forty : he must be well fed, go naked in 

 summer, rise and go to work very early, and have a sort of annual feast, proper rest, and 

 good food and clothing : coats of kid skins, worsted socks, and half boots of ox hides 

 in winter. He must not let his eye wander about while at plough, but cut a straight 

 furrow ; nor be absent in mind when sowing the seed, lest he sow the same furrow twice. 

 Tlie vine is to be pruned and staked in due season ; the vintage made in fine weather, and 

 the grapes left a few days to dry, and then carried to the press. 



, 27. The products of Grecian agriculture^ were sheep, goats, swine, cattle, mules, asses, 

 and horses : the grains and legumes at present in cultivation ; and the vine, fig, olive, 

 apple, date, and other fruits. It does not appear that artificial grasses or herbage plants 

 were in use ; but recourse was had, in times of scarcity, to the mistletoe and the cytisus : 

 what plant is meant by the latter designation is not agreed on ; some consider it the 

 medicago arborea, Linn. , and others the common lucerne. Hay was, in all probability, 

 obtained from the meadows and pastures, which were used in common : flax, and pro- 

 bably hemp, was grown. Wood for fuel, and timber for construction, were obtained from 

 the natural forests, which, in Solon's time, abounded with wolves. Nothing is said of 

 the olive or fig by Hesiod; but they were cultivated in the fields for oil and food, as well 

 as the vine for wine. One of Solon's laws directs, that olive and fig trees must be 

 planted nine feet from a neighbour's ground, on account of their spreading roots : other 

 trees might be planted within five feet. 



28. In Hesiod* s time almost every citizen was a husbandman, and had a portion of land 

 which he cultivated himself, with the aid of his family, and perhaps one or two slaves ; 

 and the produce, whether for food or clothing, appears to have been manufactured at 

 home. The progress of society would, no doubt, introduce the usual division of labor 

 and of arts ; and commercial cultivators, or such as raised produce for the purpose of 

 exchange, would in consequence arise ; but when, and to what extent this was carried, at 

 the time Greece became a Roman province (B. C. 100), the ancient writers afford us no 

 means of ascertaining. 



Sect. III. Oflhej4gricvllure of the Jews, and other nations of Antiquiiy. 



29. Of the agriculture of the nations contemporary ivith the Egy]}tians and Greeks nothing 

 is distinctly known ; but assuming it as most probable that agriculture was first brought 

 into notice in Egypt, it may be concluded that most other countries, as well as Greece, 

 would begin by imitating the practices of that cojiintry, 



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