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.
1 CONCERNING THE FARM ITSELF
How conformation of the land affects agriculture
VI. Four things must be considered in respect of the physical characteristics of the farm: its conformation, the quality of the soil, its extent, and whether it is naturally protected. The conformation is either natural, or artificial as the result of cultivation, and may be good or bad in either case. I will speak first of natural conformation, of which there are three kinds: plain, hill and mountain — although there is a fourth kind made up of a combination of any two or all three of those mentioned, as may be seen in many places. A different system of cultivation is required for each of these three kinds of farms, for without doubt that which is suited for the hot plain would not suit the windy mountain, while a hill farm enjoys a more temperate climate than either of the other two kinds and so demands its own system of cultivation. These distinctions are most apparent when the several characteristic conformations are of large extent, as for example the heat and the humidity are greater in a broad plain, like that of Apulia, while on a mountain like Vesuvius the climate is usually fresher and so more healthy. Those who cultivate the lowlands feel the effects of their climate most in summer, but they are able to do their planting earlier in the spring, while those who dwell in the mountains suffer most from their climate in winter, and both sow and reap at later seasons. Frequently the winter is more propitious to those who dwell in the plains because then the pastures are fresh there and the trees may be pruned more readily. On the other hand the summer is more kindly in the mountains for then the upland grass is rich when the pastures of the plains are burnt, and it is more comfortable to cultivate the trees in a keen air.
A lowland farm is best when it is gently sloping rather than absolutely flat, because on a flat farm water cannot run off and so forms swampy places. But it is a disadvantage to have the surface too rolling because that causes the water to collect and form ponds.
Certain trees, like the fir and the pine, flourish most in the mountains on account of the eager air, while in this region where it is more temperate the poplars and the willows thrive best. Again the arbute and the oak prefer the more fertile lands, while the almond and the fig trees love the lowlands.20 The growth on the low hills takes on more of the character of the plains, on the high hills that of the mountains. For these reasons the kind of crops to be planted must be suited to the physical characteristics of the farm, as grain for the plains, vines for the hills and forests for the mountains.
All these considerations should be weighed separately with reference to each of the three kinds of conformation.
VII. “It seems to me,” said Stolo, “that, so far as concerns the natural situation of a farm, Cato’s opinion is just. He wrote, you will recall, that the best farm was one which lay at the foot of a mountain looking to the South.”
Scrofa resumed: “So far as concerns the laying out of the farm, I maintain that the more appearances are considered the greater will be the profit, as, for instance, orchards should be planted in straight lines arranged in quincunxes and at a reasonable distance apart. It is a fact that, because of their unintelligent plan of planting, our ancestors made less wine and corn to the acre than we do. The point is that if each plant is set with due reference to the others they occupy less land and are less likely to screen from one another the influence of the sun and the moon and the air. This may be illustrated by an experiment: you can press a parcel of nuts with their shells on into a measure having only two thirds of the capacity of what is required to contain them after they have been cracked, because the shells keep them naturally compacted. When trees are planted in rows the sun and the moon have access to them equally from all sides, with the result that more raisins and olives are developed and then mature more quickly, a double result with the double consequence of a larger crop of must and oil and a greater profit.”
How character of soil affects agriculture
“We will now take up the
second consideration in respect of the physical characteristics of a farm, namely: the quality of the soil, which partly, if not entirely, determines whether it is considered a good or a bad farm: for on this depends what crops can be planted and harvested and how they should be cultivated, as it is not possible to plant everything successfully on the same soil. For one soil is suitable for vines, another for corn, and others for other things. In the island of Crete, near Cortynia, there is said to be a plane tree which does not lose its leaves even in winter — a phenomenon due doubtless to the quality of the soil. There is another of the same kind in Cyprus, according to Theophrastus. Likewise within sight of the city of Sybaris (which is now called Thurii) stands an oak having the same characteristic. Again at Elephantine neither the vines nor the fig trees lose their leaves, something that never happens with us. For the same reason many trees bear fruit twice a year, as do the vines near the sea at Smyrna, and the apples in the fields of Consentinium. The effect of soil appears also from the fact that those plants which bear most profusely in wild places produce better fruit under cultivation. The same explanation applies to those plants which cannot live except in a marshy place, or indeed in the very water: they are even nice about the kind of water, some grow in ponds like the reeds at Reate, others in streams like the alders in Epirus, some even in the sea like the palms and the squills of which Theophrastus writes. When I was in the army, I saw in Transalpine Gaul, near the Rhine, lands where neither the vine, nor the olive, nor the pear tree grew, where they manured their fields with a white chalk which they dug out of the ground:21 where they had no salt, either mineral or marine, but used in place of it the salty ashes obtained from burning a certain kind of wood.”
Stolo here interrupted. “You will recall,” he said, “that Cato in comparing the different kinds of soil, ranked them by their merit in nine classes according to what they would produce, of which the first was that on which the vine would grow a plentiful supply of good wine; the second that fit for an irrigated garden; the third for an osier bed; the fourth for an olive yard; the fifth for a meadow; the sixth for a corn field; the seventh for a wood lot; the eighth for a cultivated orchard, and the ninth for a mast grove.”
“I know he wrote that,” replied Scrofa, “but every one does not agree with him. There are some who put a good pasture first, and I am among them.”
Our ancestors were wont to call them not prala, as we do, but parata (because they are always ready for use). The sedile Caesar Vopicus, in pleading a cause before the Censors, once said that the prairie of Rosea was the nurse of Italy, because if one left his surveying instruments there on the ground over night they were lost next day in the growth of the grass.22
(A digression on the maintenance of vineyards)
VIII. There be those who assert that the cost of maintaining a vineyard eats up the profit. What kind of vineyard? I ask. For there are several: in one the vines grow on the ground without props, as in Spain; in another, which is the kind common in Italy, the vines climb and are trained either separately on props or one with another on a trellis, which last is what is called marrying the vine. There are four kinds of trellis in use — made out of poles, of reeds, of ropes and of vines themselves, which are in use respectively in Falerum, in Arpinum, in Brundisium and in Mediolanum. There are two methods of training the vine on trellises, one upright, as is done in the country of Canusium; the other crossed and interwoven, as is the practice generally throughout Italy. If one obtains the material for his trellises from his own land, the expense of maintaining that kind of vineyard is negligible, nor is it burdensome if the material is procured from the neighbourhood. Such trellis material, as has been described, can be grown at home by planting willows, reeds and rushes, or some thing of that kind; but if you propose to rely on the vines to form their own trellis, then you must plant an arbustum where the vines can be trained on trees, such as maples, which the inhabitants of Mediolanum use for that purpose; or fig trees, on which the people of Canusium train their vines. Likewise there are four kinds of props used for the cultivation of unwedded vines; first, the planted post, which is called ridicum and is best when fashioned out of oak or juniper; second, poles cut in the swamp, and the more seasoned they are the longer they will last, but it is the practice to reset them upside down when they rot out in the ground; third, for lack of some thing better, a bundle of reeds tied together and thrust into a pointed tube of baked clay, which is then planted in the ground and serves to preserve the reeds from water rot; the fourth is what may be called the natural prop, when vines are swung from tree to tree. Vines should be trained to the height of a man and the interval between the props should be sufficient to give room for a yoke of oxen to plough. The least expensive kind of a vineyard is that which brings wine to the jug without the aid of any sort of prop. There are two of this kind, one in which the earth serves as a bed for the grapes, as in many places in Asia, and where usually the foxes share the crop with man;23 or, if mice appear, it is they who make the vintage, unless you put a mouse trap in every vine, as they do on the island of Pandataria. The other kind of vineyard, is that where each shoot which promises to bear grapes is lifted from the earth and supported about two feet off the ground by a forked stick: by this means the grapes, as they form, learn to hang as it were from a branch and do not have to be taught after the vintage; they are held in place with a bit of cord or by that kind of tie which the ancients called a cestus. As soon as the farmer sees the vintagers turn their backs he carries these props under cover for the winter so that he may use them another year without expense for that account. In Italy the people of Reate practise this custom.
Thus there are as many methods of cultivating the vine as there are kinds of soil. For where the land is wet the vine must be trained high because when wine is being made and matured on the vine, it needs sun, not water — as when it is in the cup! For this reason it was, I think, that first the vine was made to grow on trees.
Of the different kinds of soil
IX. It is expedient then, as I was saying, to study each kind of soil to determine for what it is, and for what it is not, suitable. The word terra is used in three senses: general, particular and mixed. It is a general designation when we speak of the orb of the earth, the land of Italy or any other country. In this designation is included rock and sand and other such things. In the second place, terra is referred to particularly when it is spoken of without qualification or epithet. In the third place, which is the mixed sense, when one speaks of terra as soil — that in which seeds are sown and developed; as for example, clay soil or rocky soil or others. In this sense there are as many kinds of earth as there are when one speaks of it in the general sense, on account of the mixtures of substances in it in varying quantities which make it of different heart and strength, such as rock, marble, sand, loam, clay, red ochre, dust, chalk, gravel, carbuncle (which is a condition of soil formed by the burning of roots in the intense heat of the sun); from which each kind of soil is called by a particular name, in accordance with the substances of which it is composed, as a chalky soil, a gravelly soil, or what ever else may be its distinguishing quality. And as there are different varieties of soil so each variety may be subdivided according to its quality, as, for example, a rocky soil is either very rocky, moderately rocky or hardly rocky at all. So three grades may be made of other mixed soils. In turn each of these three grades has three qualities: some are very wet, some very dry, some moderate, These distinctions are of the greatest importance in respect of the crops, for the skilled husbandman plants spelt rather than wheat in wet land, and on dry land barley rather than spelt, in medium land both. Furthermore there are still more subtle distinctions to be made in respect of all these kinds of soil, as for example it must be considered in respect of loam, whether it is white loam or red loam, because white loam is unfit for nursery beds, while red loam is what they require. But the three great distinctions of quality of soil are whether it is lean or fat, or medium. Fat soils are apparent from
the heavy growth of their vegetation, and the lean lie bare; as witness the territory of Pupinia (in Latium), where all the foliage is meagre and the vines look starved, where the scant straw never stools, nor the fig tree blooms, while for the most part the trees are as covered with moss as are the arid pastures. On the other hand, a rich soil like that of Etruria reveals itself heavy with grain and forage crops and its umbrageous trees are clean of moss. Soil of medium strength, like that near Tibur, which one might say is rather hungry than starved, repays cultivation in proportion as it takes on the quality of rich land.”
“Diophanes of Bithynia,” said Stolo, “was very much to the point when he wrote that the best indication of the suitability of soil for cultivation can be had either from the soil itself or from what grows in it: so one should ascertain whether it is white or black, if it is light and friable when it is dug, whether its consistency is ashy, or too heavy: or it can be tested by evidence that the wild growth upon it is heavy and fruitful after its kind.24 But proceed and tell us of your third division, which relates to the measurement and laying out of the farm.”
Of the units of area used in measuring land
X. Scrofa resumed: “Every country has its own system for measuring land. In Further Spain the unit of area is the jugum, in Campania the versus, here in the Roman country and among the Latins it is the jugerum. They call a jugum the area which a pair of oxen can plough in a day. The versus is one hundred feet square: the jugerum is the area containing two square actus: the actus quadratus or acnua, as it is called by the Latins, measuring 120 feet in width and as much in length.25 The smallest fraction of a jugerum is called a scripulum and is ten feet square. From this base the surveyors some times call the butts of land which exceed a jugerum unciae (twelfths) or sextantes (seventy seconds) or some other such duodecimal division, for the jugerum contains 288 scripula, like the ancient pound weight which was in use before the Punic wars. Two jugera, which Romulus first made the headright and which thus became the unit of inheritance, are called an haeredium:26 later one hundred haeredia were called a centuria, which is 2,400 unciae square. Four centuriae adjoining, so that there are two on each side, are called a saltus in the distribution of the public lands.”
Delphi Complete Works of Varro Page 18