4-8 REV. G. K. HALL, ON 



up from the mountain's base, sometimes on each side of a valley, 

 if the aspect is favourable, with their rich crops of sugar-cane, 

 cotton, and rice, and their simple but ingenious plans of irriga- 

 tion. Further eastward, in China, too, such terrace cultivation 

 is spoken of by Du Halde as carried to great perfection ; and Dr. 

 Abel, accompanying Lord Amherst's embassy, describes them as 

 occupying the precise position of the North Tynedale culture 

 lines, being confined in a great measure to their ravines, undu- 

 lations, and gentlest declivities. And here, I may remark, how 

 well their sites coincide with the instructions of Columella, Cato, 

 Varro, Pliny, and Palladius, all the Roman writers, de re rustica, 

 agreeing as to the best situation for culture, which has been un- 

 consciously followed by the common-sense instinct of our remote 

 British ancestors. The Rev. Adam Dickson, in his rare book, 

 "The Husbandry of the Ancients,"* translates the remarks of 

 Palladius thus : — " The best situation of lands is not so much on 

 a level as to make the waters stagnate, nor so steep as to make 

 it run off with violence, nor so low as to be buried in the bottom 

 of a valley, nor so exposed as to feel the violence of storms and 

 heats, but that in all these a mediocrity is always best : — cham- 

 paign lands exposed, and whose declivity affords the rain a free 

 passage, or a hill whose sides gently decline, or a valley not too 

 much confined, and into which the air has easy access, or a 

 mountain defended by a higher top, and thereby secured from 

 the winds that are most pernicious, or, if high and rugged, at 

 the same time covered with trees and grass."! Similar sites to 

 those recommended by their best writers, the Roman conquerors 

 of Britain seem to have used in the neighbourhood of their great 

 towns along the Wall. Speaking of Borcovicus, the "Tadmor of 

 Britain," Dr. Bruce observes, "A little to the south of it, and 

 stretching westward, the ground has been thrown up in long 

 terraced lines, a mode of cultivation much practiced in Italy and 

 in the east. Similar terraces, more feebly developed, appear at 

 Bradley. I have seen them very distinctly marked on the banks 



*Vol. L, p. 138, f.f. 



t Compare Smith's " Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities," 2nd Edition, p. -t-5, 

 Aj-t. " AgTicultura." 



