414 AGRICULTURE. 



by certain persons, or in certain places, as is generally the case 

 with Varro and Pliny. 



Wherever the phenomena 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 con- 

 cern in everything ; and hence the endless and absurd super- 

 stitions 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 favor or 

 avert their evil influences. Hesiod considered it of not more 

 importance to describe what works were to be done, than 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. 



As the Romans made few advances in science, they conse- 

 quently made equally few in divesting themselves of the su- 

 perstitions of their ancestors. These, as most readers know, 

 entered into every action and art of that people, and into none 

 more than agriculture. In some cases it is of importance for 

 the general reader to be aware of this before perusing their 

 rustic authors, as in the case 'of heterogeneous grafting, and 

 the spontaneous generation and transmutation of plants, which, 

 though stated by Virgil and Pliny and others as facts, are known 

 to every physiologist to be impossible. Other relations are too 

 gross to be entertained as truths by any one. 



It is curious to observe the religious economy of Cato. After 

 recommending the master of the family to be regular in perform- 

 ing his devotions, he expressly forbids the rest of the family to 

 perform any, either by themselves or others, telling them that 

 they were to consider that the master performed sufficient de- 

 votions for the household. This was intended to save time, and 

 also to prevent such slaves as had naturally more susceptible im- 

 aginations than the others from becoming religious enthusiasts. 



What degree of improvement agriculture received from the 

 Romans is a question we have no means of answering. Agri- 

 culture appears obviously to have declined from the time of 



