Cato's Farm Management 



should be at the foot of a mountain, 

 looking to the West, in a healthy 

 situation, where labor and cattle can 

 be had, well watered, near a good 

 sized town, and either on the sea or 

 a navigable river, or else on a good 

 and much frequented road. Choose 

 a place which has not often changed 

 ownership, one which is sold unwill- 

 ingly, that has buildings in good re- 

 pair. 



Beware that you do not rashly con- 

 temn the experience of others. It is 

 better to buy from a man who has 

 farmed successfully and built well.' 



1 This, of course, means buying at a high price, 

 except in extraordinary cases. There is another sys- 

 tem of agriculture which admits of the pride of mak- 

 ing two blades of grass grow where none was before, 

 and the profit which comes of buying cheap and sell- 

 ing dear. This is farming for improvement, an art 

 which was well described two hundred years before 

 Cato. Xenophon {Oeconomicus XX, 22) says: 



"For those who are able to attend to their affairs, 

 however, and who will apply themselves to agricul- 

 ture earnestly, my father both practiced himself and 

 taught me a most successful method of making prof- 

 it for he would never allow me to buy ground al- 

 ready cultivated, but exhorted me to purchase such 



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