GREEK AGRICULTURE. 381 



one voyage. He describes the seasons fit for the coasting trade, 

 and advises great care of the vessel at such time as she is not in 

 use, and hanging up the rudder and other tackle in the smoke of 

 the chimney. He concludes " The Works " with some desultory 

 precepts of religion, personal propriety, and decorum ; and en- 

 joins some curious superstitious observances, relative to family 

 matters. "The Days" contain a division of the lunar month 

 into holy, auspicious, and inauspicious days, mixed and interme- 

 diary days, the latter being such as are entitled to no particular 

 observance. 



Property in land, among the Greeks, seems to have been 

 absolute in the owner, or what we would term freehold. In 

 the matter of inheritance, the sons seem to have divided the 

 patrimony in equal portions. One of Solon's laws forbade men 

 to purchase as much land as they desired. An estate containing 

 water, either in springs or otherwise, was highly valued, espe- 

 cially in Attica ; and there a law existed relating to the depth 

 of wells, the distance they were to be dug from other men's 

 grounds, what was to be done when no water was found, and 

 other matters to prevent contention as to water. Lands were 

 enclosed, probably with a ring fence or boundary mark, or, most 

 likely, the enclosed lands were such as surrounded the villages, 

 and were in constant cultivation, the great breadth of the country 

 being, it may be presumed, in common pasture. Solon decrees 

 that, " He who digs a ditch or makes a trench nigh another's 

 land shall leave so much distance from his neighbor as the ditch 

 or trench is deep. If any one make a hedge near his neighbor's 

 ground, let him not pass his neighbor's landmark. If he build 

 a wall, he is to leave one foot between him and his neighbor ; 

 if a house, two feet. A man building a house in his field must 

 place it a bow-shot from his neighbor's." 



The operations of culture, as appears by Hesiod, required to 

 be adapted to the season. Summer fallows were in use, and 

 the ground received three plowings, one in autumn, another 

 in the spring, and a third immediately before sowing the seed. 

 Manures were applied. In Homer, an old king is found manur- 

 ing his fields with his own hands, and the invention of manures 

 is ascribed by Pliny to the Grecian king Augeas. Theophrastus 

 enumerates six different species of manures, and adds that a- 



