LUCIUS JUNIUS MODERATUS 

 COLUMELLA 



ON AGRICULTURE 



BOOK I 



PREFACE 



Again and again I hear leading men of our state 

 condemning now the unfruitfulness of the soil, now 

 the inclemency of the climate for some seasons past, 

 as harmful to crops ; and some I hear reconciling the 

 aforesaid complaints, as if on well-founded reasoning, 

 on the ground that, in their opinion, the soil was 

 worn out and exhausted by the over-production 

 of earlier days and can no longer farnish sustenance 

 to mortals with its old-time benevolence." Such 2 

 reasons, Publius Silvinus,* I am convinced are far 

 from the truth ; for it is a sin to suppose that 

 Nature, endowed -with perennial fertility by the 

 creator of the universe, is affected with barrenness 

 as though with some disease ; and it is unbecoming to 

 a man of good judgment to believe that Earth, 

 to whose lot was assigned a divine and everlast- 

 ing youth, and who is called the common mother 



' See Introduction p. xiii. 



