ROMAN FARM MANAGEMENT: THE TREATISES OF CATO AND VARRO TEXT

has food cooked for you and for the hands. She should have plenty of chickens and an abundance of eggs.[29] She should diligently put up all kinds of preserves every year. _Of the hands_ (LVI) The following are the customary allowances for food: For the hands, four pecks of meal for the winter, and four and one-half for the summer. For the overseer, the housekeeper, the wagoner, the shepherd, three pecks each. For the slaves, four pounds of bread for the winter, but when they begin to cultivate the vines this is increased to five pounds until the figs are ripe, then return to four pounds. (LVII) The sum of the wine allowed for each hand per annum is eight quadrantals, or Amphora, but add in the proportion as they do work. Ten quadrantals per annum is not too much to allow them to drink. (LVIII) Save the wind fall olives as much as possible as relishes for the hands. Later set aside such of the ripe olives as will make the least oil. Be careful to make them go as far as possible. When the olives are all eaten, give them fish pickles and vinegar. One peck of salt per annum is enough for each hand. (LIX) Allow each hand a smock and a cloak every other year. As often as you give out a smock or cloak to any one take up the old one, so that caps can be made out of it. A pair of heavy wooden shoes should be allowed every other year. _Of draining_ (XLIII) If the land is wet, it should be drained with trough shaped ditches dug three feet wide at the surface and one foot at the bottom and four feet deep. Blind these ditches with rock. If you have no rock then fill them with green willow poles braced crosswise. If you have no poles, fill then with faggots. Then dig lateral trenches three feet deep and four feet wide in such way that the water will flow from the trenches into the ditches. (CLV) In the winter surface water should be drained off the fields. On hillsides courses should be kept clear for the water to flow off. During the rainy season at the beginning of Autumn is the greatest risk from water. When it begins to rain all the hands should go out with picks and shovels and clear out the drains so that the water may flow off into the roads, and the crops be protected. _Of preparing the seed bed_ (LXI) What is the first principle of good agriculture? To plough well. What is the second? To plough again; and the third is to manure. When you plough corn land, plough well and in good weather, lest you turn a cloddy furrow. The other things of good agriculture are to sow seed plentifully, to thin the young sprouts, and to hill up the roots with earth. (V) Never plough rotten land[30] nor drive flocks or carts across it. If care is not taken about this, the land so abused will be barren for three years. _Of manure_ (V) Plan to have a big compost heap and take the best of care of the manure. When it is hauled out see that it is well rotted and spread. The Autumn is the time to do this. (XXXVII) You can make manure of litter, lupine straw, chaff, bean stalks, husks and the leaves of ilex and of oak.[31] (XXX) Fold your sheep on the land which you are about to seed, and there feed them leaves.[32] _Of soil improvement_ (XXXVII) The things which are harmful to corn land are to plough the ground when it is rotten, and to plant chick peas which are harvested with the straw and are salt. Barley, fenugreek and pulse all exhaust corn land, as well as all other things which are harvested with the straw. Do not plant nut trees in the corn land. On the other hand, lupines, field beans and vetch manure corn land.[33] (VI) Where the soil is rich and fertile, without shade, there the corn land ought to be. Where the land lies low, plant rape, millet, and panic grass. _Of forage crops_ (VIII) If you have a water meadow you will not want forage, but if not then sow an upland meadow, so that hay may not be lacking. (LIII) Save your hay when the times comes, and beware lest you mow too late. Mow before the seed is ripe. House the best hay by itself, so that you may feed it to the draft cattle during the spring ploughing, before the clover is mature. (XXVII) Sow, for feed for the cattle, clover, vetch, fenugreek, field beans and pulse. Sow these crops a second and a third time. _Of planting_ (XXXIV) Wherever the land is cold and wet, sow there first, and last of all in the warmest places. _Of pastures_ (L) Manure the pastures in early spring in the dark of the moon, when the west wind begins to blow. When you close your pastures (to the stock) clean them and root out all weeds. _Of feeding live stock_ (XXX) As long as they are available, feed green leaves of elm, poplar, oak and fig to your cattle and sheep. (V) Store leaves, also, to be fed to the sheep before they have withered.[34] (XXX) Take the best of care of your dry fodder, which you house for the winter, and remember always how long the winter may last. (IV) Be sure you have well constructed stables furnished with substantial stalls and equipped with latticed feed racks. The intervals between the bars of the racks should be one foot. If you build them in this way, the cattle will not waste their food. (LIV) This is the way that provender should be prepared and fed: When the seeding is finished, gather mast and soak it in water. Feed a measure of it every day to each steer; or if they have not been worked it will be sufficient to let them pasture the mast beds. Another good feed is a measure of grape husks which you shall have preserved in jars. By day turn the cattle out and at night feed twenty-five pounds of hay to each steer. If hay is short, feed the leaves of the ilex and ivy.[35] Stack the straw of wheat, barley, beans, vetch and lupine, indeed all the grain straws, but pick out and house the best of it. Scatter your straw with salt and you can then feed it in place of hay. When in the spring you begin to feed (more heavily to prepare for work), feed a measure of mast or of grape husks, or a measure of ground lupines, and fifteen pounds of hay. When the clover is ripe, feed that first. Gather it by hand so that it will bloom a second time, for what you harvest with the sickle blooms no more. Feed clover until it is dry, then feed vetch and then panic grass, and after the panic grass feed elm leaves. If you have poplar, mix that with the elm so that the elm may last the longer. If you have no elm feed oak and fig leaves. Nothing is more profitable than to take good care of your cattle. Cattle should not be put out to graze except in winter when they are not worked; for when they eat green stuff they expect it all the time, and it is then necessary to muzzle them while they plough. _Of the care of live stock_ (V) The flocks and herds should be well supplied with litter and their feet kept clean. If litter is short, haul in oak leaves, they will serve as bedding for sheep and cattle. Beware of scab among the sheep and cattle. This comes from hunger and exposure to rain. (LXXII) To prevent the oxen from wearing down their hoofs, anoint the bottom of the hoof with liquid pepper before driving them on the highroad. (LXXIII) Take care that during the summer the cattle drink only sweet and fresh water. Their health depends on it. (XCVI) To prevent scab among sheep, make a mixture of equal parts of well strained amurca,[36] of water in which lupine has been steeped, and of lees of good wine. After shearing, anoint all the flock with this mixture, and let them sweat profusely for two or three days. Then dip them in the sea. If you have no sea water, make salt water and dip then in that. If you will do this they will suffer no scab, they will have more and better wool and they will not be molested by ticks. (LXXI) If an ox begins to sicken, give him without delay a raw hen's egg and make him swallow it whole. The next day make him drink from a wooden bowl a measure of wine in which has been scraped the head of an onion. Both the ox and his attendant should do these things fasting and standing upright. (CII) If a serpent shall bite an ox, or any other quadruped, take a cup of that extract of fennel, which the physicians call smyrnean, and mix it with a measure of old wine. Inject this through his nostrils and at the same time poultice the wound with hogs' dung.[37] You can treat a man the same way. (CLX) If a bone is dislocated it can be made sound by this incantation. Take a green reed four or five feet long, split it down the middle and let two men hold the pieces against your hips. Begin then to chant as follows: "In Alio. S.F. Motas Vaeta, Daries Dardaries Astataries Dissunapiter" and continue until the free ends of the reed are brought slowly together in front of you. Meanwhile, wave a knife above the reeds, and when they come together and one touches the other, seize them in your hand and cut them right and left. These pieces of reed bound upon a dislocated or fractured bone will cure it.[38] But every day repeat the incantation, or in place of it this one: "Huat Hanat Huat Ista Pista Sista Domiabo Damnaustra"[39] _Of cakes and salad_[40] (LXXV) This is the recipe for cheese cake (_libum_): Bray well two pounds of cheese in a mortar, and, when this is done, pour in a pound of corn meal (or, if you want to be more dainty, a half pound of flour) and mix it thoroughly with the cheese. Add one egg and beat it well. Pat into a cake, place it on leaves and bake slowly on a hot hearth stone under a dish. (CXIX) This is the recipe for olive salad (_epityrum_): Select some white, black and mottled olives and stone them. Mix and cut them up. Add a dressing of oil, vinegar, coriander, cumin, fennel, rue and mint. Mix well in an earthen ware dish, and serve with oil. (CXXI) This is the recipe for must cake (_mustaceus_): Sprinkle a peck of wheat flour with must. Add anise, cumin, two pounds of lard, a pound of cheese and shredded laurel twigs. When you have kneaded the dough, put laurel leaves under it and so bake. _Of curing hams_ (CLXII) This is the way to cure hams in jars or tubs: When you have bought your hams trim off the hocks. Take a half peck (_semodius_) of ground Roman salt for each ham. Cover the bottom of the jar or tub with salt and put in a ham, skin down. Cover the whole with salt and put another ham on top, and cover this in the same manner. Be careful that meat does not touch meat. So proceed, and when you have packed all the hams, cover the top with salt so that no meat can be seen, and smooth it out even. When the hams have been in salt five days, take them all out with the salt and repack them, putting those which were on top at the bottom. Cover them in the same way with salt and press them down. After the twelfth day remove the hams finally, brush off the salt and hang them for two days in the wind. On the third day wipe them off clean with a sponge and rub them with (olive) oil. Then hang them in smoke for two days, and on the third day rub them with a mixture of (olive) oil and vinegar. Then hang them in the meat house, and neither bats nor worms will touch them.[41] VARRO'S RERUM RUSTICARUM LIBRI TRES BOOK I THE HUSBANDRY OF AGRICULTURE _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.[42] 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).[43] _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 conversations[44] 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 Carthaginian[45] 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,[46] 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