Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/225

AGRICULTURE 201 in the earlier history of the nation, in con- nection with the old Roman love of agriculture, led to a careful and exact mode of culture, probably with the spade, and hence large and abundant crops were obtained. No greater praise could be bestowed upon an ancient Roman than to give him the name of a good husband- man. Cincinnatus was called from the plough to fight the battles of his country, and Cato the censor, distinguished as an orator, a general, and a statesman, is most loudly commended for having written a book on farming. The Roman senate ordered the 28 books of Mago, the most voluminous writer on agriculture in Carthage, to be translated into Latin for the use of the Roman people. Rome had in later times, including a century previous to the Christian era, an agricultural literature unsur- passed by that of any other country, ancient or modern, with the exception perhaps of Ger- many, France, and England of the present day. The works of her best writers, or such of them at least as have been transmitted to us, abound in sound maxims. " Our ancestors," says Cato, " regarded it as a grand point of husbandry not to have too much land in one farm, for they considered that more profit came by holding little and tilling it well." And Virgil says: " The farmer may praise large estates, but let him cultivate a small one." Speaking of the planting of trees as a means of protecting fields from high winds and storms, Pliny says: "Men should plant while young, and not build till their fields are planted; and even then they should take time to consider, and not be in too great haste. It is best, as the proverb says, to profit by the folly of others." The Roman far- mers also paid much attention to the breeding of stock. Columella mentions the points of a good milch cow to be " a tall make, long, with very large belly, very broad head, eyes black and open, horns graceful, smooth, and black, ears hairy, jaws straight, dewlap and tail very large, hoofs and legs moderate." The same writer prescribes a curious treatment of work- ing oxen, as follows : " After oxen get through ploughing, and come home heated and tired, they must have a little wine poured down their throats, and, after being fed a little, be led out to drink ; and if they will not drink, the boy must whistle to make them." The Roman agricul- turists whose works have come down to us are Cato, Varro, Virgil, Columella, Pliny, and Palladius. But there were obstacles in the nature and constitution of Roman society which made it impossible for the agriculture of Rome to reach a very high development. In the earlier days of the state, as we have seen, it was honored, but then the nation was in its infancy, extremely rude, and with a small pop- ulation and a small territory. It was a time, too, when commerce was looked upon as de- grading, and war and agriculture engaged the whole attention of the Roman citizen, the far- mer thinking himself able both to till and to defend his little farm. As the empire grew in power and wealth, the operations of agriculture were intrusted mainly to the hands of bondmen, who had little or no interest in the soil they tilled, and this alone was sufficient to prevent the art from reaching its most perfect condi- tion. This imperfect cultivation was, without doubt, characteristic of the agriculture of Italy to some extent during the whole history of the Roman empire. We have, however, the state- ments of many successful crops, which show the interest manifested by individuals in differ- ent places. Thus Pliny says that 400 stalks of wheat, all grown from one seed, were sent to the emperor Augustus ; and at another time 340 from one seed were sent to the emperor Nero from Byzacium in Africa, accompanied by the statement that "the soil when dry was so stiff that the strongest oxen could not plough it, but after a rain I have seen it opened by a share drawn by a wretched ass on the one side and an old woman on the other." As time passed on, improvements were made in the plough and other agricultural implements. The Roman plough, the exact model of which is still used in Italy, the south of France, and part of Spain, consisted of a beam to' which the yoke was attached, a handle or cross piece by which the ploughman held a share fixed into a share beam, two mould boards or one at pleasure, a coulter, and sometimes a wheel, which could be used or not at will. There were ploughs for heavy soils and ploughs for light ones, and indeed nearly every variety, so far as the prin- ciples of construction were concerned, which is known at the present day. The Romans also used spades, hoes, harrows, rakes, and some other farm implements. With all these, how- ever, the farmer's work advanced but slowly. The first ploughing required two days for a jugerum (f of an acre), and the second one day. The difference of soils and their adaptation to particular crops were well understood. Ma- nures were saved with care. The excrements of birds were especially valued, and judicious- ly applied; composts were made in suitable places, hollows being scraped out in the form of a bowl to receive the wash from the house, and properly protected from the heat of the sun ; lupines and clover were sown to plough in green, and the grain stubbles were often burnt over for the sake of the ashes. With these appliances they raised wheat, rye, barley, oats, flax, millet, pease, beans, turnips, the grape, and the olive. But perhaps the an- cients suffered more inconvenience in their agricultural operations from their failure to apply the mechanical forces of nature as a sub- stitute for hard labor, than from any other cause. Even the water wheel was not known till more than 100 years after Christ, and the wind swept over the hills of Europe till the llth century without turning a single mill. With the exception of some casual allusions by Roman writers, we have no accounts of the agriculture of other nations at or before the time when the Roman empire had begun to