ROMAN AGRICULTURE. 413 



" There are sown, on an acre, four pecks of beans, five of wheat, 

 six of barley, and ten of far, more or less as the soil is rich or 

 poor. The produce is in some places ten for one, but in others, 

 as in Tuscany, fifteen for one." This is, in round numbers, at 

 the rate of twenty-one and thirty-one bushels per English acre. 

 On the excellent lands of Leontinum, in Sicily, the produce, 

 according to Cicero, was no more than eight to ten for one. In 

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



The farmer's profit cannot be correctly ascertained ; but, 

 according to a calculation made by the Rev. A. Dixon, the sur- 

 plus produce of good land, in the time of Varro, was about fif- 

 teen 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 land- 

 lord cannot be ascertained. Corn, in Varro's time, was from ^d. 

 to 5 \d. per peck ; seventy years afterwards, in the time of Col- 

 umella, it had risen to is. <)d. per peck. Vineyards were so 

 neglected in the time of this author that they did not yield more 

 to the landlord, as rent, than 14$-. or i$s. per acre. 



The price of land, in the time of Columella and Pliny, was 

 twenty-five years' purchase. It was common, both these writers 

 inform us, to receive four 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 the 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 produce, rent, and 

 the price of lands among the Romans. 



Roman Agriculture in respect to General Science and the 

 Advancement of the Art. The sciences cultivated by the 

 Greeks and Romans were chiefly of the mental and mathemati- 

 cal 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 agricul- 

 tural writers is there any attempt made to give the rationale of 

 the practices described ; absolute 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 



