24 MAKKET GARDENING. 



Viewed in the light of the present age, how ridicu- 

 lous the directions of the ancients appear ! Take Vir- 

 gil's Georgics, for instance ; he, the prince of Latin 

 poets, possessing at once the highest intelligence of his 

 day, experience as a husbandman, ancUwith the stimulus 

 of a royal commission to revive the decaying spirit of 

 husbandry by the insinuating charms of poetry ; how 

 crude his teachings pertaining to the laws governing the 

 development of nature in the vegetable and animal 

 kingdoms ! Charming to read, even now, and correct 

 still in many practices, yet we are continually jarred by 

 directions the opposite of scientific teaching and experi- 

 ence. The ancients were ignorant of vegetable physiol- 

 ogy. Virgil, Pliny and Oolumella taught that any cion 

 might be grafted on any stock; Pliny mentions the 

 effect of grafting the vine on the elm, and other ridicu- 

 lous unions. Notwithstanding the numerous supersti- 

 tions of the Eomans, they had acquired many facts per- 

 taining to husbandry; they pruned, watered, fenced, 

 forced, and retarded blossoms and fruit much as we do. 

 Cato, in the second century before the Christian era, 

 writing upon agriculture, said, " What is good tillage? 

 First, to plow; second, to plow; third, to manure. 

 The other part of tillage is to sow plentifully, to choose 

 your seed cautiously, and to remove as many weeds as 

 possible in the season." Thus, it will be perceived, 

 quite a practical view of agriculture was taken two 

 thousand years ago. 



Despite the teachings of the ancients, agriculture 

 has for centuries been weighed down by ignorance, prej- 

 udice and imperfect action. The force of custom in 

 every country has held the farmer in chains ; and such 

 still is, alas, too often the case, even in this land of 

 progress. But to what better pursuit can an able mind 

 turn than to agriculture ? Without it men would live 

 wandering lives, disputing with each other for the pos- 



