PREFATORY NOTE 



Owing to the death of Dr. Harrison Boyd Ash of 

 the University of Pennsylvania shortly after the pub- 

 lication of the first volume (Books I-IV) of the De 

 Re Rustica of Columella, the Editors entrusted me 

 with the remainder of the work. 



There has been no complete modern edition of 

 the text since J. G. Schneider's (Leipzig 1794), but 

 the principles laid down by Dr. Ash appear to me 

 to be entirely satisfactory. He describes them 

 as follows: "The text and manuscript readings 

 of the present edition, for Books I-H, VI-VH, 

 X-XI and the De Arboribus, rest substantially 

 on the work of Lundstrom. For Books ni-\^, 

 \Tn-IX and XH, the translator has attempted to 

 construct a critical text in some approximation 

 to that of Lundstrom by the collation of four 

 major manuscripts with the text of Schneider." 

 It was natural to conclude from these words that a 

 text constructed by Dr. Ash would be available for 

 the rest of the work, but no traces of the existence 

 of such a text have been found in America. It has, 

 therefore, been necessary to undertake the con- 

 struction of a new text, and I have tried to conform 

 as far as possible with Dr. Ash's system, using 

 Lundstrom 's edition for those books which he has 

 edited and attempting a new text for Books V, VIII, 

 IX and XII. For this purpose I have been fortunate, 

 through the good offices of Professor L. A. Post, in 

 obtaining from America photostats of the four most 



