ADOKESSi 15 



second point ? To plow ! The third is to manure. As to 

 the rest, sow abundantly, select your seed carefully, and keep 

 the crop free from weeds through the season." 



"Nature," says Varro, "has shown two paths which lead 

 to a knowledge of farming — experience and imitation. Farm^ 

 ers, hitherto, by experiments have established many maxims 

 and their posterity generally imitate them ; but we ought not 

 only to imitate others, but make experiments ourselves, not 

 directed by chance but by reason." In the collection and 

 preparation of manures the Romans seem to have excelled, 

 and there is no doubt it was made a prominent subject of 

 study among them. The excrements of birds were held in 

 the highest esteem, and the utmost care was taken to preserve 

 and apply them judiciously. A compost heap was built near 

 the house, in the form of a bowl to retain the water from the 

 sink and the wash from the house, protected by a covering of 

 brush or shrubs, and the manure of the stable and barn-yard 

 was allowed to remain and ferment a year before being ap- 

 plied. A top dressing of guano, or the manure of birds 

 ground fine, was thought to have a wonderful effect in reviv- 

 ing a sickly crop, and it was often applied to wheat. They 

 hoed and stirred the soil frequently about growing crops, and 

 horse-hoeing was not very uncommon. Wheat was some- 

 times fed off, when young, to benefit the crop. 



When any remarkable crop was cultivated, a statement was 

 not unfrequently made of it, though I find no very good evi- 

 dence that it was submitted to a committee of an agricultural 

 society, and it is probable that the farmers of that day did not 

 require the stimulus of a premium to awaken enterprise and 

 competiti<!in. It is stated by Pliny that four hundred stalks of 

 wheat, ail grown from one seed, were sent to the emperor 

 Augustus ; and at another time, three hundred and forty to 

 the emperor Nero, from Byzantium, in Africa, and the state- 

 ment made of the soil was, that " when dry, the strongest 

 oxen cannot plow it, but after a rain, I have seen it opened 

 by a share drawn by a wretched ass on the one side and au 



