The System of Hitsbandry. 2 7 



which called on his inventive rather than on his industrial 

 faculties. In fact, he of the " wine and oil " district was as 

 much an exotic as his own olive tree in this cold " beer and 

 butter" region of northern Europe. 



It must be remembered too, that the British of the interior 

 had been brought up to gain a principal portion of their food 

 in the chase, and were consequently ill disposed to learn a 

 science which would not only lessen the area of their hunting- 

 grounds, but at the same time involve such arduous and 

 unexciting work as clearing woods, planting crops, and pastur- 

 ing cattle in places where the ravages of wild beasts would be 

 sure to work constant havoc. When to this drawback is added 

 that of climate, we may take for granted that the Romans had 

 an uphill task before them whilst introducing their superior 

 knowledge of husbandry, which only time and patience could 

 successfully effect. 



We would gladly, if we could, extract from history some de- 

 tails of those experiments, which were certainly tried by the 

 leading agriculturalists, who came over from Rome to "prospect" 

 the conquered island. We may reasonably conclude that their 

 vines and fig-trees accompanied them hither ; just as, Strabo 

 tells us, these plants entered Gaul soon after its conquest. Pliny ^ 

 in the 19th book of his Natural History, informs us how the 

 damp and virgin lands of the barbarians suited the growth of 

 flax, and we cannot be accused of being too fanciful in con- 

 jecturing that the introduction of linseed and some rude form 

 of linen manufacture dates from this period. We may also 

 take for granted that the cultivation of the olive was attempted 

 and abandoned. But we should like to know if the Romans 

 brought us over such trees as the Spanish chestnut and the 

 cherry, the former of which was well known throughout the 

 Italy of this period, and the latter of which Pliny himself de- 

 scribes as common in these islands at the time of his writing. 

 Who introduced to us such wonderful pets as the cat, an object 

 of veneration among the Egyptians ; the pigeon, familiar 

 enough to the Roman of Pliny's days ; or the rabbit, whose 

 excessive fecundity had well-nigh ruined the islanders of the 

 ^ Cf. Hehn's Wanderings of Plants and Animals, p. 142. 



