ROMAN FARM MANAGEMENT
THE TREATISES OF CATO AND VARRO
DONE INTO ENGLISH, WITH NOTES OF MODERN INSTANCES
BY A VIRGINIA FARMER
NOTE UPON THE ROMAN AGRONOMISTS
Quaecunque autem propter disciplinam ruris nostrorum temporum cum priscis discrepant, non deterrere debent a lectione discentem. Nam multo plura reperiuntur, apud veteres, quae nobis probanda sint, quam quae repudianda.
COLUMELLA I, I.
The study of the Roman treatises on farm management is profitable to the modern farmer however practical and scientific he may be. He will not find in them any thing about bacteria and the "nodular hypothesis"
in respect of legumes, nor any thing about plant metabolism, nor even any thing about the effects of creatinine on growth and absorption; but, important and fascinating as are the illuminations of modern science upon practical agriculture, the intelligent farmer with imagination (every successful farmer has imagination, whether or not he is intelligent) will find some thing quite as important to his welfare in the body of Roman husbandry which has come down to us, namely: a background for his daily routine, an appreciation that two thousand years ago men were studying the same problems and solving them by intelligent reasoning. Columella well says that in reading the ancient writers we may find in them more to approve than to disapprove, however much our new science may lead us t…