16 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE. Part I. 



between him and the fanner. The fanners paid rent for the use of their farms, and were 

 bound to a particular kind of culture, according to the conditions of their lease ; but 

 they were perfectly free and independent of their landlords ; so much so, as sometimes to 

 enter into lawsuits with them. On the whole they seem to have been upon the same 

 footing as the farmers of Britain in modern times. 



Sect. III. Of the Surface, Soil, Climate, and other Agricultural Circumstances of Italy, 

 during the time of the Romans. 



63. The agriculture of any country must necessarily take its character from the nature 

 of that country. The extent and manner of cultivating the soil, and the kind of plants 

 cultivated, or animals reared, must necessarily be regulated by the surface of the soil, the 

 natural productions, the climate, the artificial state, and the habits of the people. 



64. The climate of Italy is regular, dry, clear, and, as every body knows, considerably 

 warmer than that of Britain, At the bottoms of the mountains, it is subject to severe 

 storms of hail in summer, and snow in winter, which often do considerable damage ; 

 but these are but accidental disadvantages ; and in the champaign lands and gentle 

 declivities, the vine, the fig, and the olive, ripened anciently, as now, in open plantations 

 from one extremity of Italy to the other. 



65. The surface of Italy, as every reader knows, is very irregular. A ridge of hills 

 and mountains passes through its whole length, forming numerous valleys of different 

 degrees of extent ; some elevated and narrow, others low and watered by a river, a stream, 

 or by lakes. The immense plain of the Po constitutes a capital feature towards the north- 

 east ; the sandy plain of Calabria towards the south ; the marshy plain of Terracino, and 

 the rocky coast of Genoa, towards the western shore. Columella and Palladius agree in 

 stating, that the best situation of lands, is not so much on a level as to make the water 

 stagnate, nor so steep as to make it run off with violence; nor so low as to be buried in 

 the bottom of a valley ; nor so exposed as to feel the violence of storms and heats ; but 

 that in all these a mediocrity is always best ; champaign lands exposed, and whose declivity 

 affords the rain a free passage, or a hill whose sides gently decline, or a valley not too 

 much confined, and into which the air has easy access, or a mountain defended by a 

 higher top, and thereby secured from the winds that are most pernicious, or if high and 

 rugged, at the same time covered with trees and grass. {Col. lib. ii. cap. 2. ; Pal. 

 lib. i. cap. 5. ) The situation of lands which Cato reckons the best, is at the foot of a 

 mountain with a south exposure. Varro and Pliny concur in this opinion, and the latter 

 states that the best lands in Italy are so situated. 



66. The soil of Italy is as varied as the surface. About Genoa a yellow marly clay 

 forms a base to schistous cliffs and hilly slopes; a blue clay containing sulphur and 

 alum on the west coast, between Florence and Venice ; volcanic earth about Rome and 

 Naples ; sand about Florence, and at the estuaries of most of the rivers ; rich black 

 loam in the central parts of Tuscany; rich, deep, soft, moist earth, and mild marly clay, 

 in Lombardy. Columella divides the soils of Italy into six kinds ; fat and lean, free 

 and stiff, wet and dry : these mixed with one another, he says, make great varieties. In 

 common with all the other writers, he prefers a free soil. 



67. The native productions of Italy, in an agricultural point of view, are, timber on the 

 mountains, pastures on the hill sides, and meadow or very luxuriant grass-lands in the 

 alluvial plains. The rich, low, and yet dry lands do not produce a close pasture, but 

 a rough herbage, unless they are covered with trees ; the sandy soils produce little of 

 any thing ; and the fens and marshes reeds and other coarse aquatics. Such were the 

 productions of Italy antecedent to culture. 



68. The artificial state of the country, in respect to agriculture, during the time of the 

 Romans, seems to have differed less from its present state than will be imagined. The 

 cultivated lands were open, and enclosures only to be seen near the villas. These were 

 of small size, and chiefly gardens and orchards, excepting in the case of parks for game, 

 formed by the wealthy, which never were very numerous. With the exception of part 

 of Tuscany and Lombardy, this is still the case ; and the landscape, as Daniel Malthus 

 has observed [Introd. to Girardin's Essay), which Pliny observes as seen from his villas, 

 does not appear to have been different two thousand years ago, from what it is at this 

 day. But the roads, canals, markets, and artificial water-courses for the irrigation both 

 of arable and grass lands, are undoubtedly greatly increased since the time of the 

 Romans : though they also practised irrigation. 



69. The habits of a people take their rise, in a great degree, from the climate in which 

 they lire, and the native or cultivated productions with which the country abounds. As 

 respects agriculture, it may be sufficient to mention, that the great heat of the climate, by 

 relaxing the frame, naturally produces indolence in many, and leads to a life of plunder 

 in some. Hence then, as now, the danger from thieves and robbers in that country ; 

 and hence, also, the custom of performing field labors early in the morning, and in the 

 evening, arid resting during the mid-day heat. The general use of oil and wine as 



