They sometimes used a top dressing of nitrous soil, which was spread over the surface; a custom continued to the present day; but this was confined to certain crops, and principally to those reared late in the year, the fertilizing properties of the alluvial deposit answering all the purposes of the richest manure.
Besides the admixture of nitrous earth the Egyptians made use of other kinds of dressing, and sought for different productions the soils best suited to them. They even took advantage of the edge of the desert for growing the vine and some other plants, which, being composed of clay and sand, was peculiarly adapted to such as required a light soil, and the cultivation of this additional tract, which only stood in need of proper irrigation to become highly productive, had the advantage of increasing considerably the extent of the arable land of Egypt. In many places we still find evidence of its having been tilled by the ancient inhabitants, even to the late time of the Roman empire; and in some parts of the Fyoom the vestiges of beds and channels for irrigation, as well as the roots of vines, are found in sites lying far above the level of the rest of the country.
The occupation of the husbandman depended much on the produce he had determined on rearing. Those who solely cultivated corn had little more to do than to await the time of harvest, but many crops required constant attention, and some stood in need of frequent artificial irrigation.
Baking, Dyeing and Painting.
The fame of an actor has been justly said to be of all fame the most perishable, because he leaves no memorial of his powers, except in the fading memories of the generation which has beheld him. An analogous proposition might be made with respect to the mechanical arts: of all sorts of knowledge they are the most perishable, because the knowledge of them can not be transmitted by mere description. Let any great convulsion of nature put an end to their practice for a generation or two, and though the scientific part of them may be preserved in books, the skill in manipulation, acquired by a long series of improvements, is lost. If the United States be destined to relapse into such a state of barbarism as Italy passed through in the period which divides ancient and modern history, its inhabitants a thousand years hence will know little more of the manual process of printing, dyeing, and the other arts which minister to our daily comfort, in spite of all the books which have been and shall be written, than we know of the manual processes of ancient Italy. We reckon, therefore, among the most interesting discoveries of Pompeii, those which relate to the manner of conducting handicrafts, of which it is not too much to say that we know nothing except through this medium. It is to be regretted, that as far as our information goes, there are but two trades on which any light has yet been thrown, those, namely, of the baker and the dyer. We shall devote this chapter to collecting what is known upon these subjects, and probably also speak some on painting.
Several bakers' shops have been found, all in a tolerable state of preservation. The mills, the oven, the kneading-troughs, the vessels for containing flour, water, leaven, have all been discovered, and seem to leave nothing wanting to our knowledge; in some of the vessels the very flour remained, still capable of being identified, though reduced almost to a cinder. But in the centre some lumps of whitish matter resembling chalk remained, which, when wetted and placed on a red-hot iron, gave out the peculiar color which flour thus treated emits. Even the very bread, in a perfect though carbonized form, has in some instances been found in the oven. One of these bakers' shops was attached to the House of Sallust, another to the House of Pansa: probably they were worth a handsome rent. A third, which we select for description, for one will serve perfectly as a type for the whole, seems to have belonged to a man of higher class, a sort of capitalist; for, instead of renting a mere dependency of another man's house, he lived in a tolerably good house of his own, of which the bakery forms a part. It stands next to the House of Sallust, on the south side, being divided from it only by a narrow street. Its front is in the main street or Via Consularis, leading from the gate of Herculaneum to the Forum. Entering by a small vestibule, the visitor finds himself in a tetrastyle atrium (a thing not common at Pompeii), of ample dimensions, considering the character of the house, being about thirty-six feet by thirty. The pillars which supported the ceiling are square and solid, and their size, combined with indications observed in a fragment of the entablature, led Mazois to suppose that, instead of a roof, they had been surmounted by a terrace. The impluvium is marble. At the end of the atrium is what would be called a tablinum in the house of a man of family, through which we enter the bake-house, which is at the back of the house, and opens into the smaller street, which, diverging from the main street at the fountain by Pansa's house, runs up straight to the city walls. The atrium is surrounded by different apartments, offering abundant accommodation, but such as we need not stop to describe.