What, then, was the cause of a fertility so remarkable as this? The fact, we have every reason to believe, that in those days the lands were tilled by the hands of generals even, the soil exulting beneath a plough-share crowned with wreaths of laurel, and guided by a husbandman graced with triumphs: whether it is that they tended the seed with the same care that they had displayed in the conduct of wars, and manifested the same diligent attention in the management of their fields that they had done in the arrangement of the camp, or whether it is that under the hands of honest men everything prospers all the better, from being attended to with a scrupulous exactness. The honours awarded to Serranus[38] found him engaged in sowing his fields, a circumstance to which he owes his surname.[39] Cincinnatus was ploughing his four jugera of land upon the Vaticanian Hill—the same that are still known as the “Quintian Meadows,”[40] when the messenger brought him the dictatorship—finding him, the tradition says, stripped to the work, and his very face begrimed with dust. “Put on your clothes,” said he, “that I may deliver to you the mandates of the senate and people of Rome.” In those days these messengers bore the name of “viator,” or “wayfarer,” from the circumstance that their usual employment was to fetch the senators and generals from their fields.
But at the present day these same lands are tilled by slaves whose legs are in chains, by the hands of malefactors and men with a branded face! And yet the Earth is not deaf to our adjurations, when we address her by the name of “parent,” and say that she receives our homage[41] in being tilled by hands such as these; as though, forsooth, we ought not to believe that she is reluctant and indignant at being tended in such a manner as this! Indeed, ought we to feel any surprise were the recompense she gives us when worked by chastised slaves,[42] not the same that she used to bestow upon the labours of warriors?
CHAP. 5.—ILLUSTRIOUS MEN WHO HAVE WRITTEN UPON AGRICULTURE.
Hence it was that to give precepts upon agriculture became one of the principal occupations among men of the highest rank, and that in foreign nations even. For among those who have written on this subject we find the names of kings even, Hiero, for instance, Attalus Philometor, and Archelaüs, as well as of generals, Xenophon, for example, and Mago the Carthaginian. Indeed, to this last writer did the Roman senate award such high honours, that, after the capture of Carthage, when it bestowed the libraries of that city upon the petty kings of Africa, it gave orders, in his case only, that his thirty-two Books should be translated into the Latin language, and this, although M. Cato had already compiled his Book of Precepts; it took every care also to entrust the execution of this task to men who were well versed in the Carthaginian tongue, among whom was pre-eminent D. Silanus, a member of one of the most illustrious families of Rome. I have already indicated,[43] at the commencement of this work, the numerous learned authors and writers in verse, together with other illustrious men, whose authority it is my intention to follow; but among the number I may here more particularly distinguish M. Varro, who, at the advanced age of eighty-eight years, thought it his duty to publish a treatise upon this subject.
(4.) Among the Romans the cultivation of the vine was introduced at a comparatively recent period, and at first, as indeed they were obliged to do, they paid their sole attention to the culture of the fields. The various methods of cultivating the land will now be our subject; and they shall be treated of by us in no ordinary or superficial manner, but in the same spirit in which we have hitherto written; enquiry shall be made with every care first into the usages of ancient days, and then into the discoveries of more recent times, our attention being devoted alike to the primary causes of these operations, and the reasons upon which they are respectively based. We shall make mention,[44] too, of the various constellations, and of the several indications which, beyond all doubt, they afford to the earth; and the more so, from the fact that those writers who have hitherto treated of them with any degree of exactness, seem to have written their works for the use of any class of men but the agriculturist.
CHAP. 6.—POINTS TO BE OBSERVED IN BUYING LAND.
First of all, then, I shall proceed in a great measure according to the dicta of the oracles of agriculture; for there is no branch of practical life in which we find them more numerous or more unerring. And why should we not view in the light of oracles those precepts which have been tested by the infallibility of time and the truthfulness of experience?
(5.) To make a beginning, then, with Cato[45]—“The agricultural population,” says he, “produces the bravest men, the most valiant soldiers,[46] and a class of citizens the least given of all to evil designs.—Do not be too eager in buying a farm.—In rural operations never be sparing of your trouble, and, above all, when you are purchasing land.—A bad bargain is always a ground for repentance.—Those who are about to purchase land, should always have an eye more particularly to the water there, the roads, and the neighbourhood.” Each of these points is susceptible of a very extended explanation, and replete with undoubted truths. Cato[47] recommends, too, that an eye should be given to the people in the neighbourhood, to see how they look: “For where the land is good,” says he, “the people will look well-conditioned and healthy.”
Atilius Regulus, the same who was twice consul in the Punic War, used to say[48] that a person should neither buy an unhealthy piece of land in the most fertile locality, nor yet the very healthiest spot if in a barren country. The salubrity of land, however, is not always to be judged of from the looks of the inhabitants, for those who are well-seasoned are able to withstand the effects of living in pestilent localities even. And then, besides, there are some localities that are healthy during certain periods of the year only; though, in reality, there is no soil that can be looked upon as really valuable that is not healthy all the year through. “That[49] is sure to be bad land against which its owner has a continual struggle.” Cato recommends us before everything, to see that the land which we are about to purchase not only excels in the advantages of locality, as already stated, but is really good of itself. We should see, too, he says, that there is an abundance of manual labour in the neighbourhood, as well as a thriving town; that there are either rivers or roads, to facilitate the carriage of the produce; that the buildings upon the land are substantially erected, and that the land itself bears every mark of having been carefully tilled—a point upon which I find that many persons are greatly mistaken, as they are apt to imagine that the negligence of the previous owner is greatly to the purchaser’s advantage; while the fact is, that there is nothing more expensive than the cultivation of a neglected soil.