LUCIUS JUNIUS MODERATUS 

 COLUMELLA 



ON AGRICULTURE 



BOOK V 



I. You have said, Silvinus, that in the earlier The 

 books, which I had written to vou about estabhsh- '"^^'^'*- 



1 1 • • • 1 1 • ment 



ing and cultivating vineyards, some things were of land. 

 omitted of which those who devote themselves to 

 agriculture felt the want ; and indeed I do not deny 

 that, although I carefully studied what the agricul- 

 turists of our own age and also the ancients have 

 handed down in written records, there are some 

 topics which I have passed over. But when I under- 

 took to teach the precepts of husbandry, if I mistake 

 not, I did not assert that I would deal with all but 

 only with very many of those subjects which the vast 

 extent of that science embraces ; for it could not 

 fall within the scope of one man's knowledge, and 2 

 there is no kind of learning and no art which has been 

 completely mastered by a single intellect. There- 

 fore, just as the task of a good sportsman, tracking 

 his prey in a vast forest, is to catch as many wild 

 beasts as he can nor has blame ever attached to any- 

 one if he did not catch them all, so it is amply 

 sufficient for us to have treated of the greatest part of 



