MY FARM OF EDGEWOOD 



bandry. But I do not cite these names for the 

 sake of making any idle boast of the antiquity 

 and dignity of the craft; we have too much 

 of that, I think, in our agricultural addresses. 

 We live in days when a calling — whatever it 

 may be— cannot find establishment of its value 

 or worth, in the echoes— however resonant and 

 grateful— of what has once belonged to it, or 

 of the dead voices that honored it. The charms 

 of Virgil and the shrewd observations of Cato 

 will go but a little way to recommend a coun- 

 try life in our time, except that life have 

 charms in itself to pique a man's poetic sensi- 

 bilities—and lessons in every field and season, 

 to tempt and reward his closest observation. 



Yet it is very remarkable how nearly these 

 old authorities have approached the best points 

 of modern practice; and again and again we 

 are startled out of our vanities by the sound- 

 ness of their suggestions. Rotation of crops, 

 surface drainage, ridging of lands, composting 

 of manures, irrigation, and the paring and 

 burning of stubble-lands are all hinted at, if 

 not absolutely advised, in treatises written ten 

 centuries ago. Nor have I a doubt but that a 

 shrewd man acting upon the best advices which 

 are to be found in the various books of the 

 Geoponica (the latest not later than the sixth 



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