RELATIONS OF AGRICULTURE TO MAN. 11 



In the line of great nations Greece followed, whose agri- 

 culture was honored, as is evidenced by their festivities and 

 sacred mysteries, and the deification of Ceres, the goddess 

 of agriculture, and of Bacchus, the god of wine. Next came 

 Rome, that owed what she was to agriculture. Her poets 

 sang the praises of her husbandmen. Virgil, whose poetry 

 revolutionized Roman agriculture, writes thus : 



" Now, O Maecenas, I begin to sing 

 AVliat shall make joyful coi-nfields in the spring ; 

 Anil toll the husbandmen beneath what sign 

 To turn the earth and train the clinging vine ; 

 What care the oxen and the flocks will please ; 

 And great experience of the frugal bees." 



Her orators, like Cicero, could say : " I have now come to the 

 farmer's life, with which I am exceedingly delighted, and 

 which seems to me to belong especially to the life of a ivise 

 man." Her statesmen and warriors were as renowned in agri- 

 culture as in the Senate and on the battle-field. Cincinnatus, 

 who drove the enemy from the gates of Rome ; Paulus ^I^^milius, 

 whose triumph was graced by the Macedonian king ; Scipio, 

 who broke the power of Carthage ; Cato, the favorite of the 

 people — the warrior and the statesman, whose writings were 

 authority to the husbandmen of his day — were all practical 

 agriculturists. 



This is the voice of all history, and we hazard nothing 

 in saying that nations have risen universally, as agricul- 

 ture has been fostered, and fallen as it has declined. There 

 have l)een short-lived peoples, that with small territories 

 or neglected soils, have for a brief space shone with bril- 

 liancy in wealth, luxury and war, but they have soon 

 passed away. The empire of Alexander was like a blazing 

 star, and like a meteor dazzled but for a moment. Tyre, 

 Carthage, Palmyra, are like examples. In more modern 

 times we have had Venice, Florence, Genoa and Holland, 

 like trees with great tops, but whose roots took little hold 

 of the soil, and hence they soon withered. Great Britain 

 might be like unto them, but for the fact that the governing 

 classes are attached to the soil, have their homes in the 

 country, live a portion of the year and rear their children on 



