5 4 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



those of the Celts 1 insomuch that some of them, though possessing plenty 

 of milk, have not skill enough to make cheese, and are probably unacquainted 

 with horticulture and other matters of husbandry. . . . Forests are their cities, 

 for having enclosed an ample space with felled trees, they make themselves 

 huts therein, and lodge their cattle, though not for long continuance." 3 



Caesar's two expeditions were but the preliminaries to the Eoman conquest 

 of Britain, which was not completed till Agricola won. the battle of Mons 

 Grampius, a.jj. 84. In the hundred and forty years after Caesar's first landing, 

 much of Eoman civilization had been introduced to Britain : if not to the 

 country as a whole, certainly to the southern end of the island and more 

 especially to those parts within reach of the Eoman network of cities and 

 garrisons with roadways to connect them. But how much of their system of 

 agriculture and how many of their crops were introduced by the Eomans 

 cannot now be told with accuracy. 



A passage in Tacitus may be read to mean that vines and even olives 

 were tried in Britain ; but that, while they failed, the other usual farm-crops 

 grown by the Eomans were successful : " With the exception of the olive and 

 vine, and plants which usually grow in warmer climates, the soil will yield, 

 and even abundantly all ordinary produce. It ripens indeed slowly, but is 

 of rapid growth, the cause in each case being the same, namely, the excessive 

 moisture of the soil and of the atmosphere." 5 



Some of the chief "ordinary produce" of the Eomans were wheat, of which 

 they had several kinds, barley, beans, millet, and flax ; while other crops 

 were lupines, lucerne, fenugreek, vetches, turnips, and radish. 4 Whether all 

 these crops — excepting millet, of course — were introduced by the Eomans 

 cannot now be told. We can only tell the crops grown in Britain after the 

 Eomans had left it ; but, before we can name with some approach to what 

 might be called approximate certainty the crops which the Celts took over 

 from the Eomans, we must give some consideration to the agriculture of the 

 nations who came to Britain after the Eomans had left. 



These other nations lived beyond the Ehine in Caesar's time, and, accord- 

 ing to him, their civilization was at a stage very similar to that of the 

 Celts in Britain. Eeferring to the Suevi, " by far the largest and most war- 

 like tribe among the Germans," he says that among them there was no 

 private ownership of land ; that they did not stay in one place longer than a 

 year ; that they did not live much upon corn but mostly upon milk and 

 flesh ; that they were much engaged in hunting ; and that, even in the coldest 



1 i.e. in Gaul. 2 Strabo, book iv, chap, v, § 2, Bolm's translation. 



3 Agricola, chapter xii, Church and Brodrihb's translation. 



4 See Dickson's Agriculture of the Ancients. 



