On Farming (Rerum Rusticarum Libri Tres)

with many more, seem to deserve more attention from naturalists than they have yet received.

Incidentally, the enormous wealth and the incredible luxury of the few in Rome, the turbulence and corruption of elections, the frequency of assassinations, the price of provisions, the market gardens, the average profits made by farms, and the occasional employment of hired laborers in preference to slaves—all these and a host of other curious facts are vividly described or illustrated in these books on farming.

The first book, on agriculture proper, begins with a general introduction to the whole work and a statement of the method to be used in treating the subject. The treatise as a whole is dedicated to his wife, Fundania. Here we may observe the elaborate care given to the setting by Varro. As the first book concerns the cultivation of the land, the scene is laid in the Temple of Tellus (the Earth), and the time is the Sementivae (the Festival of Sowing). The name Fundania suggests the fundus Latin for "farm" or "landed estate.", or farm, as do the names of the steward Fundilius and one of the speakers, Fundanius, who was Varro's father-in-law. Agrius and Agrasius—connected to ager Latin for "field" or "land."—and Stolo ("sucker" or "shoot") are names of other speakers.

The second book treats of cattle, horses, pigs,