AGRICULTURE. 



AGRICULTURE. 



servant took his horse, and led him home, 

 "taking with him," he adds, "to my house, 

 such things as are wanted, and I walk home, 

 wash my hands, and dine off whatever is pre- 

 pared for me moderately." "No man," he 

 says, " can be a farmer, till he is taught by 

 experience ; observation and instruction may 

 do much, but practice teaches many particu- 

 lars which no master would ever have thought 

 to remark upon." " Before we commence life 

 cultivation of the soil," he observes, that, " we 

 should notice what crops flourish best upon it; 

 and we may even learn from the weeds it pro- 

 duces, what it will best support." 



" Fallowing, or frequent ploughing in spring 

 or summer." he observes. " is of great advan 

 tage ;" and Hesiod advises the farmer ( Works 

 and Days, 50) always to be provided with a 

 spare plough, that no accident may interrupt 

 the operation. The same author directs the 

 ploughman to be very careful in his work. 

 " Let him," he says, " attend to his employment, 

 and trace the furrows carefully in straight 

 lines, not looking around him, having his mind 

 intent upon what he is doing." Ibid. 441 443. 



Theophrastus evidently thought that the soil 

 could not be ploughed and stirred about too 

 much, or unseasonably; for the object is to 

 let the earth feel the cold of winter and the 

 sun of summer, to invert the soil, and render 

 it free, light, and clear of all weeds, so that it 

 can most easily afford nourishment. (De Cau- 

 fis Plant, lib. iii. cap. 2, 6.) 



Xenophon recommends green plants to be 

 ploughed in, and even crops to be raised for 

 the purpose ; " for such," he says, " enrich the 

 soil as much as dung." He also recommends 

 earth that has been long under water to be put 

 upon land to enrich it, upon a scientific prin- 

 ciple which we shall explain under IRRIGA- 

 TION. Theophrastus, who flourished in the 

 fourth century B. c., is still more particular upon 

 the subject of manures. He states his convic- 

 tion that a proper mixture of soils, as clay 

 with sand, and the contrary, would produce 

 crops as luxuriant as could be effected by the 

 agency of manures. He describes the pro- 

 perties that render dungs beneficial to vegeta- 

 tion, and dwells upon composts. (Hist, of 

 Plant?, ii. cap. 8.) Xenophon recommends the 

 stubble at reaping time to be left long, if the 

 straw is abundant; " and this, if burned, will 

 enrich the soil very much, or it may be cut and 

 mixed with dung." " The time of sowing," 

 says Xenophon, "must be regulated by the 

 season ; and it is best to allow seed enough." 



Weeds were carefully eradicated from among 

 their crops ; " for, besides the hindrance they 

 are to corn, or other profitable plants, they 

 keep the ground from receiving the benefit of a 

 free exposure to the sun and air." Homer 

 describes Laertes as hoeing, when found by his 

 son Ulysses. ( O(h/ss. xxiv. 226.) 



Wafer-courses and Hit dies were made to drain 

 away " the wet which is apt to do great damage 

 to corn." 



Homer describes the mode of threshing corn 

 by the trampling of oxen (Iliad, xx. lin. 495, 

 &c.) and to get the grain clear from the 

 straw, Xenophon observes, " the men who have 

 me care of the work take care to shake up the 

 Rfi 



straw as they see occasion, flinging into the 

 way of the cattle's feet such corn as they ob- 

 serve to remain in the straw." From Theo- 

 phrastus and Xenophon combined, we can also 

 very particularly make out that the Greeks 

 separated the grain from the chaff by throwing 

 it with a shovel against the wind. 



III. THE AGRICULTURE OF THE ROMANS. 



1, 2, 3, Ploughs used by the Romans in different ages 

 4. The yoke for fixing the cattle. 5. The reaping hook 

 6. The scythe. 



It is certain, that at a very early age Italy 

 received colonies from the Pelasgi and Arca- 

 dians ; and that, consequently, with them the 

 arts of Greece were introduced ; and we may 

 conclude that there was then a similarity in 

 the practice of agriculture in the two coun- 

 tries. 



About 753 years before the nativity of Christ, 

 Romulus founded the city of Rome', whose in- 

 habitants were destined to be the conquerors 

 and the improvers of Europe. The Roman 

 eagle was triumphant in Egypt, Persia, Greece, 

 Carthage, and Macedon ; and the warriors who 

 bore it on to victory, in those and other coun- 

 tries, being all possessors of land of a larger 

 or smaller extent, naturally introduced, upon 

 their return, any superior vegetable, or im- 

 proved mode of culture, which they observed 

 in those highly civilized seats of their victories. 



Thus the arts of Rome arrived at a degree 

 of superiority that was the result of the accu- 

 mulated improvements of other nations ; and. 



