Book I. AGRICULTURE OF ANTIQUITY. 9 



(Antiq. of the Jews, vol. ii. partxii. sect. 5, 6.) that they differed very little from the 

 existing practices in the same countries, as described by modem travellers. 



23. The agricultural produce of the Jews was the same as among the Egyptians ; corn, 

 wine, oil, fruits, milk, honey, sheep, and cattle, but not swine. Tlie camel then, as now, 

 was the beast of burden and long journeys (^fg. 8. ) ; and the horse, the animal of war and 



luxury. The fruit of the sycamore-fig was abundant, and in general use ; and grapes 

 attained an astonishing size, both of berry and bunch ; the melon and gourd tribes were 

 common. The returns of corn were in general good ; but as neither public stoi-es, nor 

 com monopolisers, seem to have existed, dearths, and their attendant miseries, happened 

 occasionally. A number of these are mentioned in Scripture, and some of extraordinary 

 severity 8 



Sect. III. Of the Agriculture of the GreekS' 



24. The Aboriginal Greeks, or Pelasgi, were civilised by colonies from Egypt, and 

 received from that country their agriculture, in common with other arts and customs. 

 Some of the ancient Greeks pretend that the culture of corn was taught them by 

 Ceres ; but Herodotus, and most of the ancients, concur in considering this divinity as 

 the same with the Egyptian Isis. There is no particular evidence that the Greeks were 

 much attached to, or greatly improved, agriculture ; though Homer gives us a picture of 

 old King Laertes, divested of wealth, power, and grandeur, and living happy on a little 

 farm, the fields of which were well cultivated. (Odi/ssei/, lib. xxiv.) On another occa- 

 sion, he represents a king standing amongst the reapers, and giving them directions by 

 pointing with liis sceptre. (Ibid., v. 550.) Xenophon highly commends the art; but 

 the practical instances he refers to, as examples, are of Persian kings. 



25. JFhat we know of the agriculture of Greece is chiefly derived from the poem of 

 Hesiod, entitled Works and Days. Some incidental remarks on the subject may be 

 found in the writings of Herodotus, Xenophon, Theophrastus, and others. Varro, a 

 Roman, vmting in the century preceding the commencement of our aera, informs us, 

 that there were more than fifty authors, who might at that time be consulted on the 

 subject of agriculture, all of whom were ancient Greeks, except Mago the Carthaginian. 

 Among them lie includes Democritus, Xenophon, Aristotle, Theophrastus, and Hesiod. 

 The works of the other writers he enumerates have been lost ; and indeed all that remain 

 of Democritus are only a few extracts preserved in the Geoponika, an agricultural treatise 

 published at Constantinople by the Greeks of the fourth or fifth centuries of our aera. 

 Xenophon, Aristotle, Homer, and others, touch on our subject but very slightly. 

 Xenophon, after his banishment to Scillus, is said to have spent his time in literary pur- 

 suits, and in improving and decorating his estate ; he wrote a treatise expressly on rural 

 and domestic aflTairs, the third book of which is devoted to agriculture, entitled (Econo- 

 mics, in the form of a dialogue, and he is even said to have given lessons on the subject. 

 Of his treatise, Harte (JEssut/s, p. 201.) says, " I. take it to be one of the plainest and 

 most sensible performances amongst the writings of the ancients." Theophrastus, a 

 disciple of Aristotle, wrote on natural history, and his history of plants possesses an 

 astonishing degree of merit, for the age in which it was written. He is justly considered 

 the father of botany, and his work contains some curious observations on soils and 

 manures, and on various parts of agriculture and gardening. 



26. But the writings of Hesiod are the chief resource for details as to Grecian agri- 

 culture. This author flourished in the tenth century B. C, and was therefore contem- 

 porary with Homer. He lived at Askra, a village at the foot of Mount Helicon, in 

 Boeotia. There he kept a flock, and cultivated a soil which he describes as bad in 

 winter, hard in summer, and never good," probably a stiflf clay. As a poet who had 

 written on various subjects, Hesiod was held in great veneration ; and Aristotle states, 

 that when the Thesprotians destroyed the village of Askra, and the Orchomenians re- 

 ceived the fugitives who escaped, the oracle ordered them to send for the remains of the 

 poet who had given celebrity to the place. 



27. The Works, which constitute the first parts of his Poem, are not merely 

 details of agricultural labours, but comprise directions for the whole business of family 

 economy in the country. The poem sets out by describing the state of the world, past 

 and present, for the purpose of exemplifying the condition of human nature. This con- 

 dition entails on man the necessity of exertion to preserve the goods of life, and leaves 

 him no alternative but honest industry or unjust violence ; of which the good and evil 



