[16] Praise big farms; stick by little ones.
[17] This, with other odes, is prettily turned by Sig. Pietro Bussolino, and given as an appendix to the Serie degli Scritti in Dialetto Venez., by Bart. Gamba.
[18] De Consol. Phil. Lib. II.
[19] See Gibbon,—opening of Chapter LIII.
[20] As a curious illustration of the rhetoric of the different agronomes, I give the various wordings of this universal maxim.
The "Geoponica" has,—"Πολλο τον αγρον αμεινο ποιει δεσποτου συνεχης παρουσια." Lib. II. Cap. i.
Columella says,—"Ne ista quidem præsidia tantum pollent, quantum vel una præsentia domini." I. i. 18.
Cato says,—"Frons occipitio prior est." Cap. iv.
Palladius puts it,—"Præsentia domini provectus est agri." I. vi.
And the elder Pliny writes,—"Majores ferthissimum in agro oculum domini esse dixerunt."