HISTORICAL NOTICES OF AGRICULTURE. 11 



In one respect, wherever the conquering arm of 

 Roman power was felt, it was felt as a benefit. The 

 advanced agriculture which distinguished the Roman 

 states, as compared with the nations around them, 

 followed in the train of their armies, and, unlike 

 most ancient or modern soldiers, those of Rome, 

 when not employed in active service, were engaged 

 in cultivating the soil wherever they happened to be. 

 Thus an improved husbandry was introduced into 

 the African regions of the Mediterranean on the 

 south, and into Gaul, Germany, and Britain on the 

 north ; and with it came the germe of learning and 

 civilization. 



The terrible revulsions, however, that attended 

 the downfall of Rome, and the tenfold night into 

 which all the interests of learning, science, religion, 

 and the arts were thrown, was not less decisive in 

 its ruinous effects on the cause of improved agricul- 

 ture. The world appeared to have relapsed into 

 barbarism ; and the only places where attention was 

 paid to the cultivation of the soil was on the lands 

 belonging to the religious houses of Europe, as the 

 tenants of these were mainly safe, the plunderers 

 and marauders that ravaged the rest of the coun- 

 tries being awed by the dread of encountering the 

 thunders of the Church. With the revival of letters, 

 and particularly with the discovery of printing, rural 

 affairs began to receive greater attention ; but, in- 

 stead of experimenting for themselves, those who 

 took the lead on these topics contented themselves 

 with the methods of the Greek and Roman writers, 

 as inculcated in the collection called the De Re Rus- 

 tica. 



England now began to assume that supremacy in 

 husbandry which, with some few exceptions, and 

 those more owing, perhaps, to the faults of her cli- 

 mate than the remissness of her population, she has 

 maintained over other European countries. As from 

 that country we have derived our principles of agri- 



