Is it remotely possible that these old gentlemen understood the physiology of plants better than we?
As I return to Virgil, and slip along the dulcet lines, I come upon this cracking laconism, in which is compacted as much wholesome advice as a loose farm-writer would spread over a page:—
"Laudato ingentia rura,
Exiguum colito."[16]
The wisdom of the advice for these days of steam-engines, reapers, and high wages, is more than questionable; but it is in perfect agreement with the notions of a great many old-fashioned farmers who live nearer to the heathen past than they imagine.
The cattle of Virgil are certainly no prize-animals. Any good committee would vote them down incontinently:—
——"Cui turpe caput, cui plurima cervix,"
(iii. 52,) would not pass muster at any fair of the last century.
The horses are better; there is the dash of high venture in them; they have snuffed battle; their limbs are suppled to a bounding gallop,—as where in the Æneid,
"Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum."
The fourth book of the Georgics is full of the murmur of bees, showing how the poet had listened, and had loved to listen. After describing minutely how and where the homes of the honey-makers are to be placed, he offers them this delicate attention:—