BOOK I. IV. 3-6 



can overcome the thinness of the soil. These 4 

 results we shall attain, moreover, if we pay heed, as to 

 an oracle, to the truest of poets, who says : 



Be it our care to learn betimes the winds and moods 



of heaven, 

 To learn the tillage of our sires and nature of 



the place, 

 What fruits each district does produce and what 



it does refuse." 



And yet, not content with the authority of either 

 former or present-day husbandmen, we must hand 

 doAvn our own experiences and set ourselves to 

 experiments as yet untried. This practice, though 5 

 sometimes detrimental in part, nevertheless proves 

 advantageous on the whole ; because no field is tilled 

 without profit if the owner, through much experi- 

 mentation, causes it to be fitted for the use which it 

 can best serve. Such management also increases 

 the profit from the most fertile land. Accordingly, 

 there should be no neglect, anywhere, of experi- 

 mentation in many forms ; and far greater daring 

 should be shown on rich soil, because the return 

 will not render the toil and expense a total loss. 

 But as the nature of the farm and the method of 6 

 its cultivation is a matter of importance, even so 

 is the construction of the farmstead and the con- 

 venience of its arrangement ; for tradition has it 

 that many have made mistakes, as is the case of two 



" Vergil, Georg. I. 51-53, 



' quam Lundstrom cum R plerisque, ac deinceps tarn cum 

 codicibus omnibus ut videtur : quoniam {vel in abbr.) A et R 

 nonnulli, cdd. ante. Gesn, : cvl S : cum (quum) . . . turn 

 Gesn., Schn., fortasse recte. 



55 



