C at o' s Farm Management 



Of Laying Out the Farm 



(l) If you ask me what is the best 

 disposition to make of your estate, 

 I would say that should you have 

 bought a farm of one hundred 

 jugera (about 66 acres) all told/ 

 in the best situation, it should be 

 planted as follows: i° a vineyard, if 

 it promises a good yield, 2° an irri- 

 gated garden, 3° an osier bed, 4° an 

 olive yard, 5° a meadow, 6° a corn 

 field, 7° a wood lot, 8° a cultivated 

 orchard, and 9° a mast grove.^ 



^ This was an estate of average size, probably 

 within Virgil's precept, (Georgic II, 412.) "Laudato 

 ingentia rura, exiguum colito." Some scholars have 

 deemed this phrase a quotation from Cato. While 

 it smacks of his style, the thought is found in 

 Hesiod (W. & D., 643), "Commend a large vessel: 

 in a small one stow thy freight." 



2 The philosophy of Cato's plan of laying out a 

 farm is found in the agricultural history of the 

 Romans down to the time of the Punic wars. 

 Mommsen (II, 370) gives the facts, and Ferrero in 

 his first chapter makes brilliant use of them. There 

 is sketched the old peasant aristocrat living on his 

 few acres, his decay and the creation of compara- 

 tively large estates worked by slaves in charge of 

 overseers, which followed the conquest of the Italian 



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