416 AGRICULTURE. 



of marl as being known by the Britons, and Diodorus Siculus 

 describes their method of preserving grain, by laying it up in 

 the ear, in caves or granaries. But the general spread of agri- 

 culture in Britain was no doubt effected by the Romans. The 

 tribute of a certain quantity of grain, which they imposed on 

 every part of the country, as it fell under their dominion, obliged 

 the inhabitants to practise tillage. And from the example of 

 the conquerors, and the richness of the soil, they soon not only 

 produced a sufficient quantity of grain for their own use and 

 that of the Roman troops, but afforded every year a very great 

 surplus for exportation. The Emperor Julian, in the fourth 

 century, built granaries to receive this grain, and on one occa- 

 sion sent a fleet of eight hundred ships, " larger than common 

 barks," to convey it to the mouth of the Rhine, where it was 

 sent up the country for the support of the plundered inhabitants. 

 Agriculture among the Romans themselves had begun to 

 decline in Varro's time, and was at a low ebb in the days of 

 Pliny. Many of the great men in Rome, trusting to their reve- 

 nues from the provinces, neglected the culture of their estates 

 in Italy. Others, in want of money to answer the demands of 

 luxury, raised all they could upon credit or mortgage, and raised 

 the rents of their tenants to an oppressive height to enable 

 them to pay the interest. The farmer was in this manner de- 

 prived of his capital ; his spirits were broken and he ceased to 

 exert himself ; or he became idle and rapacious, like his land- 

 lord. The civil wars in the end of the second century, the 

 tyrannical conduct of the emperors in the third, and the removal 

 of the seat of empire to Constantinople in the middle of that 

 which followed, prepared the way for the entrance of the Goths, 

 in the beginning of the fifth century, which completed the 

 downfall of agriculture and every peaceful art. It declined at 

 the same time in all the western provinces ; in Africa and 

 Spain, from the incursions of the Moors ; in France, from the 

 inroads of the Germans ; in Germany and Helvetia, from the in- 

 habitants leaving their country and preferring a predatory life 

 in other states ; and in Britain, from the invasions of the Saxons 

 and the inroads of the Scots and Picts. 



