PRACTICAL FARMER. 



137 



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paltny days of their prosperity and glory, consid- 

 ered the occupation of a husbandman, not less 

 meritorious than the profession of arms, exalted as 

 was the estimation in which that was held, by the 

 warlike countrymen of Hami!car and Hannibal. 

 They were so much more distinguished than any 

 other contemporaneous nation, in the science and 

 practical operations of tillage, tliat a voluminous 

 work by Mago, one of their most celebrated gen- 

 erals, was so highly appreciated, by their haughty 

 and implacable enemies, that it was translated, for 

 the benefit of the people, by an express decree of 

 the Roman Senate. 



As to the vj'lue placed ob agriculture by the 

 Romans, we have the fullest evidence. It was 

 encouraged by liberal donations of land, elevated 

 by the sanctions of religion, and rendered not 

 merely a meritorious pursuit, but an object of the 

 first consideration, by the most wealthy and illus- 

 trious citizens. In their conquests, if not always 

 more magnanimous than most other nations, they 

 never lost sight of the grand object for which their 

 invasions were projected — the augmentation of 

 the resources, and prospective aggrandizement of 

 the empire. Instead, therefore, of desolating, 

 they endeavored to improve the countries which 

 they subdued, and were solicitous to civilize the 

 inhabitants by the introduction of lettere, with the 

 useful and ornamental arts. Cato derived as 

 much honor from his writings on husbandry, as 

 v>y his eloquence in the Senate house, his victo- 

 rV^s in the field, or his lofty patriotism at Utica. 

 Cncinnatus was twice called from his plough to 

 tHj dignified offices of Consul and Dictator. Vir- 

 r'jd acquired as much fame for his poems on rtn-al 

 economy, as by his epic on the adventures of the 

 Ilian prince. Piiny, the Linnaeus of antiquity, 

 was as ambitious to obtain the honors which were 

 lavishly bestowed on the cultivators of the soil, as 

 the distinction of pro-consul in Spain. Varro, 

 the intimate friend of Cicero, and who had the 

 reputation of being one the greatest philosophers, 

 and the most learned man of Rome, has his name 

 perpetuated by a treatise on rustic affairs, being 

 one only of his five hundred writings which have 

 come down to us. Columella was the agricultu- 

 ral Cyclopediast of the Caudian age, and his great 

 work, in which he treats on all the branches of 

 agriculture and gardening, is still extant. 



Simultaneous vyith the advancement of the arts 

 of civilization in the West, — if not at an earlier 

 period, — there was a like movement in the East, 

 by which they were extended over Palestine, Per- 

 sia, Media, and the j)o;;uIous valleys of the Indus 

 and Ganges, and probably to the ocean bounds of 

 China ; and considerable jjortions of that immense 

 region had become eminent for improvements in 

 tillage, anterior to the expedition of the Macedo- 

 nian conqueror. 



But all those once powerful kingdoms of anti- 

 quity were destined to experience a tremendous 

 reverse of fortune. By slow advances, each had 

 reached the loftiest point of national grandeur, 

 from whence their decadence was r.ipid and irre- 

 mediable. Neither wisdom, nutnbers, wealth, or 

 valor, could arrest their disastrous fate ; and they 

 were successively, either subjugated or impover- 

 ished by some ambitious chieftain of a rival pow- 

 er, or overwhelmed by those tribes of barbarians, 

 which in all ages have come down, like a furious 

 tempest, from the northern wilds of Asia and Eu- 

 rope, spreading fire, slaughter and devastation in 

 their terrific course. The whole human race was 

 thus thrown back into such a degraded condition, 

 that the moral firmament was obscured like a per- 

 petual night, by the dark and lurid clouds of ig- 

 norance, superstition and wretchedness. Entire 

 nations were so thoroughly exterminated, or so 

 blended in the [population of their savage conquer- 

 ors, as to have lost their distinctiveness of charac- 

 ter. Egyi)tians and Carthagenians have disap- 

 peared from the earth, leaving no traces of their 

 existence, but in the stupendous ruins of their 

 cities, pyramids, temples, aqueducts and tombs ; 

 and even the inscriptions on those of the former 

 are now unintelligible, while not a single book, or 

 page of the language — no, not so much as the 

 alphabet — of the other has survived: so com- 

 plete has been the work of destruction. Had it 

 not been for the sacred volume of the Jews, and 

 a few of the Greek and Roman authors, which 

 have reached us, the history of the world, from 

 the creation to the revival of letters, would have 

 been as unknown as that of the American conti- 

 nent, before the voyage of Columbus. By his 

 transcendent genius, a way was opened over the 

 ocean to this western hemisphere, and by the aid 

 of those precious repositories of learning, an arch 

 has been, thrown across that immense gulf of ob- 

 livion, which separated the far distant past from 

 the present. 



Amidst the universal gloom, which so long en- 

 veloped the earth, a few but widely separated 

 beacon-lights faintly gliumiered in the distant ho- 

 rizon. 'J hey arose in the midst of the wide ex- 

 tended encampments of the Arab, the Saracen 

 an 1 the Moor, where yet glowed the unextinguish- 

 ed embers of that general conflagration, in which 

 was consumed the accumulated wisdom of thirty 

 centuries. There it w^as, that the lam|)s of litera- 

 ture, science and the arts were reilluminated. At 

 Bagdad and Ispahan, Bassora and Cairo, Fez and 

 Cordova, were again reared the temples, and 

 thither thronged the devotees of intellect, it was 

 there the revival of learning commenced and 

 gradually spreading over Southern Europe, tlie 

 progress was onward, until it reached 



