On Farming (Rerum Rusticarum Libri Tres)

all three with restraint and judgment. But what is most striking is the perfection of the method adopted, which it would be difficult even now to surpass for precision and clarity of arrangement. The divisions Varro made of his complex and unwieldy subject are natural, the classifications are scientific, and the plan of treatment is logical and consistent throughout. Whether the modern farmer may learn anything of profit from Varro's treatise is a question for the agricultural expert, but there is no doubt that the methods slowly developed over hundreds of years by the most practical of all peoples—and used with complete success until the time when Italian agriculture was ruined by foreign competition (among other causes)—must be worth knowing.

Varro takes great pains to describe these methods, providing us with a brilliantly clear picture of a Roman farm as it existed in the first century before Christ. Many interesting facts are noted in passing: the use of marne marl, a lime-rich mud used as fertilizer. as manure in Gaul, the use of vegetable charcoal instead of salt, the employment of silos, the incomplete domestication of geese other than the white variety, the distribution of bulls, horses, goats, sheep, and hens in the wild state, and the difference between the types of native cattle in Italy then versus now. All these,