V
THE JOYS OF FARMING

Now I come to the pleasures of farming. These give me an unbelievable amount of enjoyment. Old age does not impede them in the least, and in my view they come closest of all things to a life of true wisdom. The bank, you might say, in which these pleasures keep their account is the earth itself. It never fails to honour their draft; and, when it returns the principal, interest invariably comes too – not always very much, but often a great deal.

But what delights me is not only the product, but the productivity and nature of the Earth herself. First, the scattered corn-seed is taken within her soft, subjugated lap. For a time it remains hidden – occaecatum is our word, from which comes occatio,1 harrowing. Then, warmed by the moist heat of her embrace, the seed expands and brings forth a green and flourishing blade. Supported by the fibres of its roots, this blade gradually matures. Within its sheath it stands firm upon a jointed stalk; this is its adolescent stage. Then, bursting out from the sheath, the blade puts forth the ears of corn, the ordered rows of grain with their palisade of spikes protecting them from the beaks of the smaller birds of the sky.

To give an account of the vine – its beginnings, its cultivation, its expansion – would be out of place here. But I must tell you that this is the recreation and satisfaction of my old age: my delight in the vine is insatiable. First, a general point, which I pass over briefly. In every product of earth there is an inborn power. This is the power by which a minute fig-seed, or a grape-stone, or the tiniest seeds of any crop or root, are transformed into vast trunks and branches. Cuttings of vines or trees, young twigs springing from a branch, plants formed by dividing roots and lodging an unsevered shoot – who could fail to be amazed and delighted by the products that emerge from these? The natural disposition of vines is to fall to the earth; but give them a prop, and they will embrace it with hand-like tendrils to raise themselves aloft. Far and wide they twist and turn, until the farmer’s skilful knife lops them in case they turn to wood and spread too luxuriantly.

When spring has started, the branches that have been left on a vine put forth their buds at every joint, and these buds are transformed into freshly growing grapes. At first very bitter to the taste, the moisture of the earth and the rays of the sun mature them, so that they sweeten to ripeness, wrapped round by young foliage which tempers the heat and keeps away the too powerful rays of the sun. What could be more delicious to the taste or more attractive to the eye?

Nor, I repeat, is the usefulness of the vine all that delights me. There is also the manner of its cultivation and the very nature of the vine itself: the rows of stakes, the joining of the vine-tops to trellises, the tying down of the shoots, their propagation by slips; as well as the pruning of certain branches, such as I have already mentioned, and the liberation of others.

Then – but I cannot go into this now – there is the fertilization of the soil, by means of irrigation, ditching, and intensive hoeing. The uses of manure I shall again leave undescribed, since you will find them set out in my book Agriculture.1 When the learned Hesiod² wrote about farming, he did not mention manure. But Homer, whom I believe to have lived many centuries earlier, tells how Laertes consoled his longing for his absent son Ulysses by tilling his lands and manuring them well.

Cornfields, meadows, vineyards, woods, all give added pleasure to the cultivator’s life. And so do orchards, cattle-pastures, bees in their swarms, and flowers in their infinite variety. Planting, too, is a delight, and so is agriculture’s most ingenious operation, grafting.

I could go on at length about the numerous attractions of the farmer’s life; but I realize I have spoken rather too long already. However, I know you will excuse me. My enthusiasm for the subject has carried me away – and I must not acquit old age of every fault: it does tend to be long-winded!

Such, then, was the life in which Manius Curius Dentatus,³ after his triumphs over the Samnites and the Sabines and Pyrrhus, spent his last years. His country house is not far from my own – and when I look at the place I am overwhelmed with admiration for that man’s self-control and the disciplined spirit of his times. He was sitting by his fireside once when certain Samnites entered, bringing him a massive gift of gold. He rejected this, however, with the comment that possessing gold is not so glorious as dominating its possessors. A man with as noble a character as that must have been capable of finding happiness in old age.

But I want to talk about my own affairs, so let us return to the farmers. In those days Senators (that is senes, ‘elders’) lived on their farms – if we are to believe the story that the men sent to tell Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus1 of his appointment as dictator found him at the plough. His were the orders, as dictator, upon which his Master of the Horse, Gaius Servilius Ahala, caught Spurius Maelius attempting to make himself king, and put him to death. Manius Curius Dentatus, too, and other veterans, when they were summoned to the Senate-house, came from their farms; and that is why the messengers sent to fetch them were called viatores, ‘travellers’.

Surely men like these, who delighted in being farmers, cannot have been unhappy when they were old. Personally I incline to the opinion that no life could be happier than the farmer’s. To begin with, the services which he performs by his cultivation of the soil are beneficial to the entire human race. And then there are the delights of which I have spoken, and his abundant and plenteous production of all things that are needed for the worship of the gods and the sustenance of mankind.

Seeing that such material considerations are important to some people, I hope this reference to them will bring me back into favour with the hedonists! For an efficient and industrious farmer keeps his wine-cellar, his oil-store, and his larder always full. His whole house has a prosperous appearance: within its rooms are stored generous supplies of pork, goat’s meat, lamb, poultry, milk, cheese, and honey-There is also his garden, which farmers call their ‘second leg of pork’. The relish of all these good things is sharpened by labours for time of leisure, such as hawking and hunting.

The greenness of the meadows, the ordered rows of trees, the lovely spectacle of vineyards and olive groves – these are themes which, in the interests of brevity, I must pass over. A well-kept farm is the most useful thing in the world, and also the best to look upon. And age, far from impeding enjoyment of your farm, actually increases its pleasures and fascinations. For nowhere else in the world can an old man better find sunshine or fireside for his warmth, or shade and running water to keep himself cool and well.

Others may have their weapons, horses, spears, foils, and balls, their hunting, and their running. Out of all the sports that exist, just leave us old men our two kinds of dice, the oblong and the cube – if you choose to, that is, for even without them old age can still be happy!

The writings of Xenophon are in many ways extremely informative, and I recommend you to read them carefully; indeed I know that you already do. His book On Estate Management1 is packed with the praises of agriculture: devotion to farming seemed to him the most royal of pursuits. He emphasizes this by a story he makes Socrates tell Critobulus. The younger Cyrus, a Persian prince of outstanding intelligence and rank, was visited at Sardis by Lysander. This enlightened Spartan brought Cyrus gifts from their allies, and was given a kindly and hospitable reception. Among other attentions, Cyrus showed Lysander an elaborately planted park. His visitor complimented the prince on the lofty trees, planted in patterns of five, and on the clean well-tilled soil and the fragrance of the flowers; and what impressed him, added Lysander, besides the hard work which had been devoted to its growth, was the ingenuity with which the whole park had been planned and marked out. Cyrus replied that the planning was all his own: the rows were arranged, the lay-out designed, by himself. On hearing this Lysander gazed at his host’s purple robe, and resplendent good looks, and the Persian magnificence of his abundant golden ornaments and jewels, and declared: ‘people are right to call you happy, Cyrus, because you are not only good, you are fortunate too.’

Well, this good fortune of practising agriculture and horticulture is one which an old man is able to enjoy: the cultivation of the soil is one of the activities which age does not impede up to his very last days. Tradition records, for example, that Marcus Valerius Corvinus² worked on his farm at an extremely advanced age, indeed until he was a hundred. His first and his sixth consulships were forty-six years apart – in other words his public career lasted for what our ancestors reckoned to be the duration of a man’s life exclusive of old age. And the last part of his life was happier than the middle, because he was held in greater respect, and had less work to do.