Introduction: the literary tradition of country life
I
Had I leisure, Fundania, this book would be more worthy of you, but I write as best I may, conscious always of the necessity of haste: for, if, as the saying is, all life is but a bubble, the more fragile is that of an old man, and my eightieth year admonishes me to pack my fardel and prepare for the long journey.
You have bought a farm and wish to increase its fertility by good cultivation, and you ask me what I would do with it were it mine. Not only while I am still alive will I try to advise you in this, but I will make my counsel available to you after I am dead. For as it befel the Sibyl to have been of service to mankind not alone while she lived, but even to the uttermost generations of men after her demise (for we are wont after so many years still to have solemn recourse to her books for guidance in interpretation of strange portents), so may not I, while I still live, bequeath my counsel to my nearest and dearest.1 I will then write three books for you, to which you may have recourse for guidance in all things which must be done in the management of a farm.
And since, as men say, the gods aid those who propitiate them, I will begin my book by invoking divine approval, not like Homer and Ennius, from the Muses, nor indeed from the twelve great gods of the city whose golden images stand in the forum, six male and as many female, but from a solemn council of those twelve divinities who are the tutelaries of husbandmen.
* * * * *
First: I call upon Father Jupiter and Mother Earth, who fecundate all the processes of agriculture in the air and in the soil, and hence are called the great parents.
Second: I invoke the Sun and the Moon by whom the seasons for sowing and reaping are measured.
Third: I invoke Ceres and Bacchus because the fruits they mature are most necessary to life, and by their aid the land yields food and drink.
Fourth: I invoke Robigus and Flora by whose influence the blight is kept from crop and tree, and in due season they bear fruit (for which reason is the annual festival of the robigalia celebrated in honour of Robigus, and that of the floralia in honour of Flora).2
Next: I supplicate Minerva, who protects the olive; and Venus, goddess of the garden, wherefore is she worshipped at the rural wine festivals.
And last: I adjure Lympha, goddess of the fountains, and Bonus Eventus, god of good fortune, since without water all vegetation is starved and stunted and without due order and good luck all tillage is in vain.
* * * * *
And so having paid my duty to the gods, I proceed to rehearse some conversations3 concerning agriculture in which I have recently taken part. From them you will derive all the practical instruction you require, but in case any thing is lacking and you wish further authority, I refer you to the treatises of the Greeks and of our own countrymen.
The Greek writers who have treated incidentally of agriculture are more than fifty in number. Those whom you may consult with profit are Hieron of Sicily and Attalus Philometor, among the philosophers; Democritus the physicist; Xenophon the disciple of Socrates; Aristotle and Theophrastus, the peripatetics; Archytas the pythagorean; likewise the Athenian Amphilochus, Anaxipolis of Thasos, Apollodorus of Lemnos, Aristophanes of Mallos, Antigonus of Cyme, Agathocles of Chios, Apollonius of Pergamum, Aristandrus of Athens, Bacchius of Miletus, Bion of Soli, Chaeresteus and Chaereas of Athens, Diodorus of Priene, Dion of Colophon, Diophanes of Nicaea, Epigenes of Rhodes, Evagon of Thasos, Euphronius of Athens, and his name sake of Amphipolis, Hegesias of Maronea, the two Menanders, one of Priene, the other of Heraclaea, Nicesius of Maronea, Pythion of Rhodes. Among the rest whose countries I do not know, are Andiotion, Aeschrion, Aristomenes, Athenagoras, Crates, Dadis, Dionysius, Euphiton, Euphorion, Eubulus, Lysimachus, Mnaseas, Menestratus, Plentiphanes, Persis, and Theophilus.
All those whom I have named wrote in prose, but there are those also who have written in verse, as Hesiod of Ascra and Menecrates of Ephesus.
The agricultural writer of the greatest reputation is, however, Mago the Carthaginian4 who wrote in the Punic tongue and collected in twenty-eight books all the wisdom which before him had been scattered in many works. Cassius Dionysius of Utica translated Mago into Greek in twenty books (and dedicated his work to the praetor Sextilius), and notwithstanding that he reduced Mago by eight books he cited freely from the Greek authors whom I have named. Diophanes made a useful digest of Cassius in six books, which he dedicated to Deiotarus, King of Bithynia. I have ventured to compress the subject into the still smaller compass of three books, the first on the husbandry of agriculture, the second on the husbandry of live stock and the third on the husbandry of the steading.
From the first book I have excluded all those things which I do not deem to relate immediately to agriculture: thus having first limited my subject I proceed to discuss it, following its natural divisions. My information has been derived from three sources, my own experience, my reading, and what I have heard from others.
Of the definition of agriculture
a. What it is not
II. On the holiday which we call Sementivae I came to the temple of Tellus at the invitation of the Sacristan (I was taught by my ancestors to call him Aeditumus but the modern purist tells me I must say Aedituus). There I found assembled C. Fundanius, my father-in-law, C. Agrius, a Roman Knight and a disciple of the Socratic school, and P. Agrasius, of the Revenue service: they were gazing on a map of Italy painted on the wall. “What are you doing here?” said I. “Has the festival of the seed-sowing drawn you hither to spend your holiday after the manner of our ancestors, by praying for good crops?” “We are here,” said Agrius, “for the same reason that you are, I imagine — because the Sacristan has invited us to dinner. If this be true, as your nod admits, wait with us until he returns, for he was summoned by his chief, the aedile, and has not yet returned though he left word for us to wait for him.”
“Until he comes then,” said I, “let us make a practical application of the ancient proverb that ‘The Roman conquers by sitting down.’”
“You’re right,” cried Agrius, and, remembering that the first step of a journey is the most difficult,5 he lead the way to the benches forthwith and we followed. When we were seated Agrasius spoke up. “You who have travelled over many lands,” said he, “have you seen any country better cultivated than Italy?”
“I, for one, don’t believe,” replied Agrius, “that there is any country which is so intensely cultivated. By a very natural division Eratosthenes has divided the earth into two parts, that facing South and that facing North: and as without doubt the North is healthier than the South, so it is more fertile, for a healthy country is always the most fertile. It must be admitted then that the North is fitter for cultivation than Asia, and particularly is this true of Italy; first, because Italy is in Europe, and, second, because this part of Europe has a more temperate climate than the interior. For almost everlasting winter grips the lands to the North of us. Nor is this to be wondered at since there are regions within the Arctic Circle and at the pole where the sun is not seen for six months at a time. Yea, it is even said that it is not possible to sail a ship in those parts because the very sea is frozen over.”
“Would you think it possible,” said Fundanius, “for any thing to grow in such a region, and, if it did grow, how could it be cultivated? The tragedian Pacuvius has spoken sooth where he says:
‘Should sun or night maintain e’er lasting reign,
Then all the grateful fruits of earth must die,
Nipped by the cold, or blasted by the heat.’
Even here in this pleasant region, where night and day revolve punctually, I am not able to live in summer unless I divide the day with my appointed midday nap. How is it possible to plant or to cultivate or to harvest any thing there where the days and nights are six months long. On the other hand, what useful thing is there which does not only grow but flourish in Italy? What spelt shall I compare with that of Campania? What wheat with that of Apulia? What wine with that of Falernum? What oil with that of Venafrum? Is not Italy so covered with fruit trees that it seems one vast orchard? Is Phrygia, which Homer calls [Greek: ampeloessa], more teeming with vines, or is Argos, which the same poet calls [Greek: polupuros] more rich in corn?6 In what land does one jugerum produce ten, nay even fifteen, cullei of wine, as in some regions of Italy? Has not M. Cato written in his book of Origines ‘That region lying this side of Ariminium and beyond Picenum, which was allotted to colonists, is called Roman Gaul. There in several places a single jugerum of land produces ten cullei of wine.’ Is it not the same in the region of Faventia where the vines are called tre centaria because a jugerum yields three hundred amphorae of wine,” and, looking at me, he added, “indeed L. Martius, your chief engineer, said that the vines on his Faventine farm yielded that much.7 The Italian farmer looks chiefly for two things in considering a farm, whether it will yield a harvest proportioned to the capital and labour he must invest, and whether the location is healthy. Whoever neglects either of these considerations and despite them proposes to carry on a farm, is a fool and should be taken in charge by a committee of his relatives.8 For no sane man is willing to spend on an agricultural operation time and money which he knows he cannot recoup, nor even if he sees a likely profit, if it must be at the risk of losing all by an evil climate.
“But there are here present those who can discourse on this subject with more authority than I, for I see C. Licinius Stolo and Cn. Tremelius Scrofa approaching. It was the ancestor of the first of these who brought in the law for the regulation of land-holding; for the law which forbade a Roman citizen to own more than 500 jugera of land was proposed by that Licinius who acquired the cognomen of Stolo on account of his diligence in cultivating his land: he is said to have dug around his trees so thoroughly that there could not be found on his farm a single one of those suckers which spring up from the ground at the roots of trees and are called stolones. Of the same family was that other C. Licinius who, when he was tribune of the people, 365 years after the expulsion of the Kings, first transferred the Sovereign function of law making from the Comitium to the Forum, thus as it were constituting that area the ‘farm’ of the entire people.9 The other whom I see come hither is Cn. Tremelius Scrofa, your colleague on the Committee of Twenty for the division of the Campanian lands, a man distinguished by all the virtues and considered to be the Roman most expert in agriculture.10
“And justly so,” I exclaimed, “for his farms are a more pleasing spectacle to many on account of their clean cultivation than the stately palaces of others;11 when one goes to visit his country place, one sees granaries and not picture galleries, as at the ‘farm’ of Lucullus.12 Indeed,” I added, “the apple market at the head of the Sacred Way is the very image of Scrofa’s fruit house.”
As the new comers joined us, Stolo inquired: “Have we arrived after dinner is over, for we do not see L. Fundilius who invited us.”
“Be of good cheer,” replied Agrius, “for not only has that egg which indicates the last lap of the chariot race in the games at the circus not yet been removed, but we have not even seen that other egg which is the first course of dinner.13 And so until the Sacristan returns and joins us do you discourse to us of the uses or the pleasures of agriculture, or of both. For now the sceptre of agriculture is in your hands, which formerly, they say, belonged to Stolo.”
“First of all,” began Scrofa, “we must have a definition. Are we to be limited in discussing agriculture to the planting of the land or are we to touch also on those other occupations which are carried on in the country, such as feeding sheep and cattle. For I have observed that those who write on agriculture, whether in Greek or Punic or Latin, wander widely from their subject.”
“I do not think that those authors should be imitated in that,” said Stolo, “for I deem them to have done better who have confined the subject to the straitest limits, excluding all considerations which are not strictly pertinent to the subject. Wherefore the subject of grazing, which many writers treat as a part of agriculture, seems to me to belong rather to a treatise on live stock. That the occupations are different is apparent from the difference in the names of those we put in charge of them, for we call one the farmer (villicus) and the other the herdsman (magister pecoris). The farmer is charged with the cultivation of the land and is so called from the villa or farm house to which he hauls in the crops from the fields and from which he hauls them away when they are sold. Wherefore also the peasants say vea for via, deriving their word for the road over which they haul from the name of the vehicle in which they do the hauling, vectura, and by the same derivation vella for villa, the farm house to and from which they haul. In like manner the trade of a carrier is called vellatura from the practice of driving a vectura, or cart.”
“Surely,” said Fundanius, “feeding cattle is one thing and agriculture is another, but they are related. Just as the right pipe of the tibia is different from the left pipe, yet are they complements because while the one leads, it is to carry the air, and the other follows, it is for the accompaniment.”
“And, to push your analogy further, it may be added,” said I, “that the pastoral life, like the tibia dextra, has led and given the cue to the agricultural life, as we have on the authority of that learned man Dicaearchus who, in his Life of Greece from the earliest times, shows us how in the beginning men pursued a purely pastoral life and knew not how to plough nor to plant trees nor to prune them; only later taking up the pursuits of agriculture; whence it may be said that agriculture is in harmony with the pastoral life but is subordinate to it, as the left pipe is to the right pipe.”
“Beware,” exclaimed Agrius, “of pushing your musical analogy too far, for you would not only rob the farmer of his cattle and the shepherd of his livelihood but you would even break the law of the land in which it is written that a farmer may not graze a young orchard with that pestiferous animal which astrology has placed in the heavens near the Bull.”
“See here, Agrius,” said Fundanius, “let there be no mistake about this. The law you cite applies only to certain designated kinds of cattle, as indeed there are kinds of cattle which are the foes and the bane of agriculture such as those you have mentioned — the goats — for by their nibbling they ruin young plantations, and not the least vines and olives. But, because the goat is the greatest offender in this respect, we have a rule for him which works both ways, namely: that victims of his family are grateful offerings on the altar of one god but should never come near the fane of another; since by reason of the same hate one god is not willing even to see a goat and the other is pleased to see him killed. So it is that goats found among the vines are sacrificed to Father Bacchus as it were that they should pay the penalty of their evil doing with their lives; while on the contrary nothing of the goat kind is ever sacrificed to Minerva, because they are said to make the olive sterile even by licking it, for their very spittle is poison to the fruit. For this reason goats are never driven into the Acropolis of Athens, except once a year for a certain necessary sacrifice, lest the olive tree, which is said to have its origin there,14 might be touched by a goat.”
“No kind of cattle,” said I, “are of any use to agriculture except those which aid in the cultivation of the land, as they do when they are yoked to the plough.”
“If this was so,” said Agrasius, “how could we afford to take cattle off the land, since it is from our flocks and herds that we derive the manure which is of the greatest benefit to our purely agricultural operations.”
“On your argument of convenience,” said Agrius, “we might claim that slave dealing was a branch of agriculture, if they were agricultural slaves which we dealt in. The error lies in the assumption that because cattle are good for the land, they make crops grow on the land. It does not follow, for by that reasoning other things would become part of agriculture which have nothing to do with it: as for example spinsters and weavers and other craftsmen which you might keep on your farm.”
“Let us then agree,” said Scrofa, “to exclude live stock from our consideration of the art of agriculture. Does any one want to exclude any thing else?”
“Are we to follow the book of the two Sasernas,” I inquired, “and discuss whether the manufacture of pottery is more related to agriculture than mining for silver or other metals? Doubtless the material comes out of the ground in both cases, but no one claims that quarrying for stone or washing sand has any thing to do with agriculture, so why bring in the potter? It is not a question of what comes out of the land, nor of what can be done profitably on a farm, for if it were it might as well be argued that had one a farm lying along a frequented road and a site on it convenient to travellers, it would be the farmer’s business to build a cross-roads tavern. But surely, however profitable this might prove, it would not make the speculation any part of agriculture. It is not, I repeat, whether the business is carried on on account of the land, nor out of the land, that it may be classed as a part of agriculture, but only if from planting the land one gains a profit.”
“You are jealous of this great writer,” interrupted Stolo. “Because of his unfortunate potteries you rebuke him captiously and give him no credit for all the admirable things which he says about matters which certainly relate to agriculture.”
At this sally, Scrofa, who knew the book and justly contemned it, smiled, whereupon Agrasius, who thought that he and Stolo alone knew the book demanded of Scrofa a quotation from it.
“Here is his recipe for getting rid of bugs,” said Scrofa. “‘Steep a wild cucumber in water and where-ever you sprinkle it the bugs will disappear,’ and again, ‘Grease your bed with ox gall mixed with vinegar.’”
Fundanius looked at Scrofa. “And yet Saserna gives good advice even if it is in a book on agriculture,” he said.
“Yes, by Hercules,” said Scrofa, “and especially in his recipe for removing superfluous hair, in which he bids you take a yellow frog and stew it down to a third of its size and then rub the body with what is left.”15
“I would rather cite,” said I, “Sasernas’ prescription for the malady from which Fundanius suffers, for his corns make wrinkles on his brow.”
“Tell me, pray, quickly,” exclaimed Fundanius, “for I had rather learn how to root out my corns than how to plant beet roots.”
“I will tell you,” said Stolo, “in the very words he wrote it, or at least as I heard Tarquenna read it: ‘When a man’s feet begin to hurt he should think of you to enable you to cure him.’”
“I am thinking of you,” said Fundanius, “now cure my feet.”
“Listen to the incantation,” said Stolo.
‘May the earth keep the malady,
May good health remain here.’
Saserna bids you chant this formula thrice nine times, to touch the earth, to spit and be sure that you do it all before breakfast.”
“You will find,” said I, “many other wonderful secrets in Saserna, all equally foreign to agriculture, and so all to be left where they are. But it must be admitted that such digressions are found in many other authors. Does not the agricultural treatise of the great Cato himself fairly bristle with them, as for instance his instructions how to make must cake and cheese cake, and how to cure hams?”
“You forget,” said Agrius, “his most important precept: ‘If you wish to drink freely and dine well in company, you should eat five leaves of raw cabbage steeped in vinegar, before sitting down to the table.’”
b. What agriculture is
III. “And so,” said Agrasius, “as we have agreed upon and eliminated from the discussion all those things which agriculture is not, it remains to discuss what it is. Is it an art, and, if so, what are its principles and its purposes?”
Stolo turned to Scrofa and said: “You are our senior in age, in reputation and in experience, you should speak.” And Scrofa, nothing loath, began as follows:
“In the first place, agriculture is not only an art but an art which is as useful as it is important. It is furthermore a science, which teaches how every kind of land should be planted and cultivated, and how to know what kind of land will produce the largest crops for the longest time.16“
The purposes of agriculture are profit and pleasure
IV. The elements with which this science deals are the same as those which Ennius says are the elements of the universe — water, earth, air and fire. Before sowing your seed it behooves you to study these elements because they are the origin of all growing things. So prepared, the farmer should direct his efforts to two ends: profit and pleasure,17 one solid the other agreeable: but he should give the preference to the pursuit of profit.18 And yet those who have regard for appearances in their farming, as for instance by planting their orchards and olive yards in orderly array, often add not only to the productiveness of the farm but as well to its saleability, and so doubly increase the value of their estate. For of two things of equal usefulness, who would not prefer to buy the better looking?
The farm which is healthiest is the most valuable, for there the profit is certain. On the other hand, on an unhealthy farm, however fertile it may be, misfortune dogs the steps of the farmer. For where the struggle is against Death, there not only is the profit uncertain, but one’s very existence is constantly at risk: and so agriculture becomes a gamble in which the farmer hazards both his life and his fortune. And yet this risk can be diminished by forethought, for, when health depends upon climate, we can do much to control nature and by diligence improve evil conditions. If the farm is unhealthy by reason of the plight of the land itself, or of the water supply, or is exposed to the miasma which breeds in some localities, or if the farm is too hot on account of the climate, or is exposed to mischievous winds, these discomforts can be mitigated by one who knows what to do and is willing to spend some money. What is of the greatest importance in this respect is the situation of the farm buildings, their plan and convenience, and what is the aspect of their doors and gates and windows. During the great plague, Hippocrates the physician saved not merely one farm but many cities because he knew this. But why should I summon him as a witness: for when the army and the fleet lay at Corcyra19 and all the houses were crowded with the sick and dying, did not our Varro here contrive to open new windows to the healthy North wind and close those which gave entrance to the infected breezes of the South, to change doors and to do other such things, and so succeed in restoring his comrades safe and sound to their native land?
The fourfold division of the study of agriculture
V. I have rehearsed the elements and the purposes of agriculture, it now remains to consider in how many divisions this science is to be studied.”
“I have supposed these to be without number,” said Agrius, “when I have read the many books which Theophrastus wrote on The History of Plants and The Causes of Vegetation.
“These books,” said Stolo, “have always seemed to me to be fitter for use in the schools of the philosophers than in the hands of a practical farmer. I do not mean to say that they do not contain many things which are both useful and practical. However that may be, do you rather explain to us the divisions in which agriculture should be studied.”
“There are four chapters for the study of agriculture, of the highest practical importance,” resumed Scrofa, “namely:”
1 What are the physical characteristics of the land to be cultivated, including the constitution of the soil;
2 What labour and equipment are necessary for such cultivation;
3 What system of farming is to be practised;
4 What are the season? at which the several farming operations are to be carried out.
Each of these four chapters may be divided in at least two subdivisions:
The first into (a) a study of the soil, and (b) a survey of the buildings and stabling.
The second into an enquiry as to (c), the men who will carry on the farming operations, and (d) the implements they will require.
The third into (e) the kind of work to be planned, and (f) where that work is to be done.
The fourth into what relates (g) to the annual revolution of the sun, and (h) the monthly revolution of the moon.
I will speak of the four principal parts first, and then in detail of the eight subdivisions.