Book I AGRICULTURE OF THE ROMANS. SI 



manipulation given by the manufacturer can be accurately calculated ; but in farming, 

 though we know the rent of the land and price of seed-corn, which may be considered 

 the raw materials ; yet the quantity of labour required to bring forth the produce, depends 

 so much on seasons, accidents, and other circumstances, to which agriculture is more 

 liable than any other art, that its value or cost price cannot easily be determined. It is 

 a common mode to estimate the profits of farming by the numerical returns of the seed 

 sown. But this is a most fallacious ground of judgment, since the quantity of seed given 

 to lands of different qualities, and of different conditions, is very different ; and the acre, 

 which, being highly cultivated and sown with only a bushel of seed, returns forty for one, 

 may yield no more profit dian that which, being in a middling condition, requires four 

 bushels of seed, and yields only ten for one. 



167. The returns of seed sown, mentioned by the ancients, are very remarkable. We 

 have noticed Isaac's sowing and reaping at Gerar (7.), where he received a hundred for 

 one. In Mark's gospel, " good seed sown upon good ground, is said to bring forth in 

 some places thirty, in others forty, in others sixty, and in others even an hundred fold." 

 (Mark, iv. 8.) A hundred fold, Varro informs us, w^as reaped about Garada in Syria, 

 and Byzacium in Africa. Pliny adds, that from the last place, there were sent to 

 Augustus by his factor nearly 400 stalks, all from one grain ; and to Nero, 340 stalks. 

 He says he has seen the soil of this field, " which when dry the stoutest oxen cannot 

 plough ; but after rain I have seen it opened up by a share, drawn by a wretched ass on 

 the one side, and an old woman on the other." {Nat. Hist., lib. xviii. cap. 5. ) The returns 

 in Italy were much less extraordinary. Varro says, there are sown on a jugerum, four 

 modii (pecks) of beans, five of wheat, six of barley, and ten of far (maize) ; more or less 

 as the soil is rich or poor. The produce is in some places ten after one, but in others, as 

 in Tuscany, fifteen after one." (Lib. i. cap. 44.) This, in round numbers, is at the rate 

 of twenty-one and thirty-two bushels an English acre. On the excellent lands of Leon- 

 tinum in Sicily, the produce, according to Cicero, was no more than from eight to ten for 

 one. In Columella's time, when agriculture had declined, it was still less. 



168. The farmer s profit cannot be correctly ascertained ; but, according to a calculation 

 made by the Rev. A. Dickson, the surplus produce of good land in the time of Varro, 

 was about fifteen pecks of wheat per acre ; and in the time of Columella, lands being 

 worse cultivated, it did not exceed three and one third pecks per acre. What proportion 

 of this went to the landlord cannot be ascertained. Corn, in Varro's time, was from Ad. 

 to 5\d. per peck ; seventy years afterwards, in the time of Columella, it had risen to 

 Is. 9d. per peck. Vineyards were so neglected in the time of this author, that they did 

 not yield more to the landlord as rent, than 14s. or 15s. per acre. 



1 69. The price of land, in die time of Columella and Pliny, was twenty-five years' 

 purchase. It was common, both these writers inform us, to receive 4 per cent for capital 

 so invested. The interest of money was then 6 per cent ; but this 6 per cent was not 

 what we would call legal interest ; money among die Romans being left to find its value, 

 like other commodities, of course the interest was always fluctuating. — Such is the 

 essence of what is known as to the produce, rent, and price of lands among the Romans. 



Sect. VI. Of the Roman Agiiculturists, in respect to general Science, and the 



Advancement of the Art. 



170. The sciences cultivated by the Greeks and Romans were chiefly of the mental and 

 ■mathematical kind. They knew nothing of chemistry or physiology, and very little of 

 other branches of natural philosophy ; and hence their progress in the practical arts was 

 entirely the result of observation, experience, or accident. In none of their agricultural 

 writers is there any attempt made to give the rationale of the practices described : abso- 

 lute directions are either given, as is frequently the case in Virgil and Columella ; or the 

 historical relation is adopted, and the reader is informed what is done by certain persons, 

 or in certain places, as is generally the case with Varro and Pliny. 



171. Wherever the jyhenomena of nature are not accounted for scientifically, recourse is 

 had to supernatural causes; and the idea of this kind of agency once admitted, there is 

 no limit that can be set to its influence over the mind. In the early and ignorant ages, 

 good and evil spirits were supposed to take a concern in every thing ; and hence the 

 endless and absurd superstitions of the Egyptians, some of which have been already 

 noticed, and the equally numerous though perhaps less absurd rites and ceremonies of the 

 Greeks, to procure their favour, or avert their evil influence. Hesiod considered it of not 

 more importance to describe what works were to be done, dian to describe the lucky and 

 unlucky days for their performance. Homer, Aristotle, Theophrastus, and all the Greek 

 authors, are more or less tinctured with this religion, or superstition as we are pleased to 

 call it, of their age. 



172. As the Romans made few advances in science, consequently they made equally few 

 in divesting themselves of the superstitions of their ancestors. These, as most readers 

 know, entered into every action and art of that people, and into none more than agri- 



