II] INTRODUCTION 123 



the corn, whereby we may grow fat, from Africa 

 and Sardinia, and get in the vintage by ship from 

 \ the islands of Cos or Chios. And so in that country 

 where the city's founders were shepherds and' 

 taught agriculture to their descendants, these de-\ 

 scendants have reversed the process, and, through 

 covetousness and in despite of laws, have turned 

 corn-land into meadow, not knowing the difference 

 between agriculture and grazing. For a shepherd 

 : is a different thing from a ploughman, and if herds 

 of cattle can and do graze on the land, a cattle 

 I drover is not therefore the same as a teamster. For 

 grazing cattle do not help to produce what grows 

 on the land, they remove it with their teeth ; where- 

 as the domestic ox makes the corn grow better in 

 the corn-land, and fodder in the fallow land. 



Different, I repeat, is the method, the science, of 

 the farmer from that of the shepherd — the farmer's 

 — evince being such things as are made by means 

 : agriculture to spring from the ground, the shep- 

 crd's those that spring from the flock. But, as the 

 two are intimately connected, and seeing that as a 

 '-'lie it pays the owner better to have the fodder 

 ten on his farm than to sell it, and manuring is 

 xcellent for the fruits of the earth — for which pur- 

 pose cattle are most suitable — therefore the man 

 who owns an estate should adopt both systems, 

 agriculture and pasture-farming, and even the 

 rearing of animals within the precincts of the farm- 

 bought us from the provinces across the sea, and get our 

 intages in from the Cyclades, Baetica, and Gaul." ^q 



11 



