watered them, enclosed by a thick-set hedge. I do not
thank him for the observation ; I prefer to regard the
four acres of Alcinous with all the Homeric bigness
ind glow upon them. And under the same old Greek
haze I see the majestic Ulysses, in his tattered clothes
flinging back the taunts of the trifling EuryniachuSj
• Lord Orfbrd's Works, 1793; Vol. II. p. 520.
Digitized by VjOOQIC
14 WET DAYS.
and in the spirit of a yeoman who knew how to hai.dle
a plough as well as a spear, boasting after this style : —
" Should we, O Prince, engage
In rival tasks beneath the burning rage
Of summer suns; were both constrained to wield,
Foodless, the scythe along the burdened field;
Or should we labor, while the ploughshare wounds,
With steers of equal strength, the allotted grounds;
Beneath my labors, how thy wondering eyes
Might see the sable field at once arise !"
To return to Hesiod, we suspect that he was only a
small farmer — if he had ever farmed at all — in the
foggy latitude of Boeotia, and knew nothing of the simny
wealth in the south of the peninsula, or of such princely
estates as Eimiaius managed in the Ionian Seas. Flax-
man has certainly not given him the look of a large
proprietor in his outlines : his toilet is severely scant,
and the old gentleman appears to have lost two of his
fingers in a chaff-cutter. As for Perses, who is rep-
resented as listening to the sage,* his dress is in the
extreme of classic scantiness, — being, in fact, a mere
night-shirt, and a tight fit at that.
But we dismiss Hesiod, the first of the heathen farm-
writers, with a loving thought of his pretty Pandora,
whom the goddesses so bedecked, whom Jove looks on
(in Flaxman's picture) with such sharp approval, and
* Flaxman's Illustrations of Works and Days ; Plate I.
Digitized by VjOOQIC
XENOPHON, 15
wliose aUhbutes the poet has compacted into one res-
onant line, daintily rendered by Cooke, -—
" Thns the sex b^gan
A lovely miBchlef to the soul of i
Xenophon,
T NEXT beg to pull from his place upcm the shelf,
-*- and to present to the reader. General Xenophon,
a most graceful writer, a capital huntsman, an able
strategist, an experienced farmer, and, if we may be-
lieve Laertius, "handsome beyond expression."
It is refreshing to find such qualities united in one
man at any time, and doubly refreshing to find them in
a person so far removed from the charities of to-day
that the malcontents cannot pull his character in pieces;
To be sure, he was guilty of a few acts of pillage in the
course of his Persian campaign, but he tells the story
of it in his " Anabasis " with a brave front ; his purse
was low, and needed replenishment ; there is no cover
put up, of disorderly sutlers or camp-followers.
The farming reputation of the general rests upon
his " (Economics " and his horse-treatise ClirTrticiJ).
Economy has come to have a contorted meaning in
our day, as if it were only — saving. Its true gist is
better expressed by the word management ; and in that
old-fashioned sense it forms a significant title for Xen*
Digitized by VjOOQIC
16 WET DAYS,
ophon's book : management of the household, managie-
ment of flocks, of servants, of land, and of property in
g-3neral.
At the very outset we find this bit of practical wis-
dom, which is put into the mouth of Socrates, who la
replying to Critobulus: — "Those things should be
called goods that are beneficial to the master. Neither
can those lands be called goods which by a man's un-
skilful management put him to more expense than he
receives profit by them ; nor may those lands be called
goods which do not bring a good fanner such a profit
as may give him a good living.**
Thereafter (sec. vii.) he introduces the good Ischom-
achus, who, it appears, has a thrifty wife at home, and
from that soiu*ce flow in a great many capital hints upon
domestic management The apa/tments, the exposure,
the cleanliness, the order, are all considered in such an
admirably practical, common-sense way as would make
the old Greek a good lecturer to the sewing-circles of
our time. And when the wife of the wise Ischomachus,
in an unfortunate moment, puts on r<yuge and cosmetics,
the grave husband meets her with this complimentary
rebuke: — "Can there be anything in Nature more
complete than yourself?"
" The science of husbandry,** he says, and it might
be said of the science in most times, " is extremely prof-
itable to those who understand it; but it brings th«
Digitized by VjOOQIC
XENOPBON, . 17
greatest trouble and misery upon those farmers who
undertake it without knotirledge." (sec. xv.)
Where Xcnophon comes to speak of the details of
farm-labor, of ploughings and fallowings, there is all
that precision and particularity of mention, added to a
shrewd sagacity, which one might look for in the col-
umns of the " Country Gentleman.'' He even describes
how a field should be thrown into narrow lands, in
order to promote a more efiectual sur&ce-drainage. In
the midst of it, however, we come upon a stercorary
maxim, which is, to say the least, of doubtful worth : —
'^ Nor is there any sort of earth which will not make
very rich manure, by being laid a due time in standing
water, till it is fiilly impregnated with the virtue of the
water." One of his British translators. Professor Brad-
ley, does, indeed, give a little note of corroborative
testimony. But I would not advise any active farmer^
on the authority either of General Xenophon or of
.Professor Bradley, to transport his surface-soil very
largely to the nearest frog-pond, in the hope of finding
it tran»nuted into manure. The absorptive and reten-
tive capacity of soils Ls, to be sure, the bone just now
of very particular contention ; but whatever that ca-
pacity may be, it certainly needs something more pal-
pable than the virtue of standing water for its profita«
ble development
Here, again, is very neat evidence of how much
t
Digitized by VjOOQIC
18 WET DAYS.
simple good sense has to do with husbandry : Socrates
who is supposed to have no particular knowledge of Ihe
craft, says to his interlocutor, — " You have satisfied me
that I am not ignorant in husbandry ; and yet I never
had any master to instruct me in it"
" It is not," says Xenophon, " difference in knowledge
or opportunities of knowledge that makes some farmers
rich and others poor ; but that which makes some poor
and some ric^i is that the former are negligent and lazy,
the latter industrious and thrifty."
Next, we have this masculine ergo : — " Therefore we
may know that those who will not learn such sciences
as they might get their living by, or do not fall into
husbandry, are either downright fools, or else propose
to get their living by robbery or by begging." (sec. xx.)
This is a good clean cut at politicians, office-holders,
and other such beggar-craft;, through more than a score
of centuries, — clean as classicism can make it : the
Attic euphony in it, and all the aroma of age.
Once more, and it is the last of the " CEconomicus,"
we give this charming bit of New-Englandism : — "I
remember my father had an excellent rule," {Isclioma*
chus loquitur,) " which he advised me to follow : that,
if ever I bought any land, I should by no means pur*
chase that which had been already well-improved, but
should choose such as bad never been tilled, eithei
through neglect of the jwner, or for want of capacity
Digitized by VjOOQIC
XENOPBi
to do it ; for he observed, that, if I ^®fe "to "purchase
improved grounds, I must pay a high price for them,
and then I could not propose to advance their value,
and must also lose the pleasure of improving them
myself, or of seeing them thrive better by my en-
deavors." *
When Xenophon wrote his ruivil treatises, (including
the KwiyycTtKos,) he was living in that delightful region
of country which lies westward of the mountains of
Arcadia, looking toward the Ionian Sea. Here, too,
he wrote the story of his retreat, and his wanderings
among the mountains of Armenia ; here he talked with
his friends, and made other such symposia as he has
given us a taste of at the house of Callias the Athenian ;
here he ranged over the whole country-side with his
horses and dogs ; a stalwart and lithe old gentleman,
without a doubt ; able to mount a horse or to manage
one, with the supplest of the grooms ; and with a keen
eye, as his book shows, for the good points in horse-
flesh. A man might make a worse mistake than to
buy a horse after Xenophon's instructions, to-day. A
spavin or a wind-gall did not escape the old gentleman's
e3^e, and he never bought a nag without proving his
wind, and handling him well about the mouth and ears.
* It is worthy of note that Cato advises a contrary practice, and
urges that purchase of land be made of a good farmer. " Caveto n«
alienam disciplinam temere contemnas. De domino bono colonr^, bono*
fne sedilicatore melius emetur." — De Re Rusticd^ I.
Digitized by VjOOQIC
JO WET DAYS,
His grooms were taught their duties with nice special*
ity: the mane and tail to be thoroughly washed; the
food and bed to be properly and regularly prepared ;
and treatment to be always gentle and kind.
Exception may perhaps be taken to his doctrine in
regard to stall-floors. Moist ones, he says, injure the
hoof: ^^ Better to ha\e stones inserted in the ground
close to one another, equal in size to their hoofs ; for
such Stalls consolidate the hoofs of those standing on
them, beside strengthening the hollow of the foot"
After certain directions for rough riding and leaping,
he advises hunting through thickets, if wild animals are
to be found. Otherwise, the following pleasant diver-
sion is named, which I beg to suggest to sub-lieutenants
in training for dragoon-service: — "It is a useful ex-
ercise for two horsemen to agree between themselves,
that one shall retire through all sorts of rough places,
and as he flees, is to turn about from time to time and
present his spear ; and the other shall pursue, having
javelins blunted with balls, and a spear of the same
description, and whenever he comes within javelin-
throw, he is to hurl the blunted weapon at the party
retreating, and whenever he comes within spear-reach,
he is to strike him with it"
Putting aside his horsemanship, in which he must
have been nearly perfect, there was very much that was
grand about the old Greek, — ^ ery much that makes ui
Digitized by VjOOQIC
THEOCRITUS AND LESSER POETS, «1
ctrangely love the man, who, when his soldiers laj be-
numbed undes the snows on the heights of Armenia,
threw off his general's coat, or blanket, or what not,
and set himself resolutely to wood-chopping and to
cheering them. The farmer knew how. Such men win
battles. He has his joke, too, with Cheinsophus, the
Lacedasmonian, about the thieving propensity of his
townspeople, and invites him, in virtue of it, to steal a
difficult march upon the enemy. And Cheinsophus
grimly retorts upon Xenophon, that Athenians are said
to-be great experts in stealing the public money, espe-
cially the high officers. This sounds home-like 1 When
I come upon such things, — by Jupiter 1 — I forget the
parasangs and the Taocliians and the dead Cyrus, and
seem to be reading out of American newspapers.
Theocritus and Lesser Poets.
XT is quite out of the question to claim Theocritus as
-â– - a farm-writer ; and yet in all old literature there is
not to be found such a lively bevy of heifers, and wan-
ton kids, and " butting rams," and stalwart herdsmen,
who milk the cows " upon the sly," as in the " Idyls " of
the musical Sicilian.
Tliere is no doubt but Theocritus knew the country
to a charm : he knew all its roughnesses, and the thorns
that scratched the bare legs of the goatherds; he
Digitized by VjOOQIC
22 WET DAYS.
knew the lank heifers, that fed, '' like grasshopper^*
only on dew ; he knew what clatter the brooks made,
tumbling headlong adown the rocks ; * he knew, more-
over, all the charms and coyness of the country-
nymphs, giving even a rural twist to his praises of the
courtly Helen : —
" In shape, in height, in stately presence fair,
Straight as a furrow gliding from the share.'* f
A man must have had an eye for good ploughing and
a lithe figure, as well as a keen scent for the odor of
fresh-turned earth, to make such a comparison as that !
Again, he gives us an Idyl of the Reapers. Milo and
Battus are afield together. The last lags at his work,
and Milo twits him with his laziness ; whereupon Battiia
retorts, —
^ Milo, thou moiling drudge, as hard as stone,
An absent mistress did'st thou ne'er bemoan ? '*
And Milo, —
" Not I, — I never learnt fair maids to woo ;
Pray, what with love have reaping men to do ? "
Yet he listens to the plaint of his brother-reaper, and
draws him out in praise of his mistress — "charming
* The resounding clatter of his falling water is too beautiful to b«
omitted : —
— Inrb Tttf irerpag KaTokeipeTcu, ijjfo&ev idup'
1 Elton's translation, I think. I do not vouch for its correctneM
Digitized by VjOOQIC
THEOCRITUS AND LESSER POETS, 23
Bombyce," — upon which love-lorn strain Milo breaks
in, rough and homely and breezy: —
" My Battas, witless with a beard so long,
Attend to tuneful Ljrtierses' song.
fruitful Ceres, bless with com the field;
May the full ears a plenteous harvest yield !
Bind, reapers, bind your sheaves, lest strangers Eay,
* Ah, lazy drones, their hire is thrown away ! '
To the fresh north wind or the zephyrs rear
Your shocks of com ; those breezes fill the ear.
Ye threshers, never sleep at noon of day.
For then the light chaff quickly blows away.
Reapers should rise with larks to earn their hire,
Kest in the heat, and with the larks retire.
How happy is the fortune of a frog:
He wants no moisture in his watery bog.
Steward, boil all the pease : such pinching 's mean ,
You'll cut your hand by splitting of a bean."
Theocritus was no French sentimentalist ; he would
have protested against the tame elegancies of the Ro-
man Bucolics ; and the sospiri ardenti and miserelli
amanti of Guarini would have driven him mad. He is as
brisk as the wind upon a breezy down. His cow-tenders
are swart and barelegged, and love with a vengeance.
It is no Boucher we have here, nor Watteau: cosmetics
and rosettes are far away ; tunics are short, and cheeks
are nut-brown. It is Teniers rather ; — boors, indeed ;
but they are live boors, and not manikin shepherds
ITiere is no miserable tooting upon flutes, but an up
Digitized by VjOOQIC
24 WET DAYS.
roarious song that shakes the woods ; and if it conies tc
a matter of kissing, there are no •* reluctant lips," hut a
snmck that makes the vales resound.
I shall call out another Sicilian here, named Mo»
chus, were it only for his picture of a fine, sturdy bul-
lock : it occurs in his " Rape of Europa " : —
"With yellow hue his sleekened body beams;
His forehead with a snowy circle gleams;
Horns, equal-bending, from his brow emerge,
And to a moonlight crescent orbing verge."
Nothing can be finer than the way in which this
"milky steer," with Europa on his back, goes sailing
over the brine, his " feet all oars." Meantime, she, tlic
pretty truant,
" Grasps with one hand his curved projecting horn,
And with tlie other closely drawn compressed
The fluttering foldings of her purple vest,
Whene'er its fringed hem was dashed with dew
Of the salt sea-foam that in circles flew :
Wide o'er Europa^s shoulders to the gale
The ruffled robe heaved swelling, like a. sail.'*
IMoschus is as rich as the Veronese at Venice ; and
his picture is truer to the premium standard. The
painting shows a pampered animal, with over-red
blotches on his white hide, and is by half too fat tc
breast such " salt sea-foam " as flashes on the Idyl of
Moschus.
Digitized by VjOOQIC
THEOCRITUS AND LESSER POETS. 21
Another poet, Aratus of Cilicia, whose very name
lias a smack of tillage, has lefl us a book about the
weather (Aioo-Tz/xcta) which is quite as good to mark
down a hay-day by as the later meteorologies of Pro-
fessor Esp3 or Judge Butler.
Besides which, our friend Aratus holds the abiding
honor of having been quoted by St Paul, in his speech
to the Athenians on Mars Hill : —
" For in Him we live, and move, and have our being;
as certain also of your own poets have said : * For we
are also His offspring.' "
And Aratus, (after Elton,) —
" On thee our being hangs; in thee we move ;
All are thy offspring, and the seed of Jove."
Scattered through the lesser Greek poets, and up
and down the Anthology, are charming bits of rurality,
redolent of the fields and of field-life, with which it
would be easy to fill up the measure of this rainy day,
and beat off the Grecian couplets to the tinkle of the
eave-drops. Up and down, the cicada chirps; the
locust, " encourager of sleep," sings his drowsy song ;
boozy Anacreon flings grapes; the purple violets and
tlie daffodils crown the perfumed head of Heliodora;
and the reverent Simonides likens our life to the grass.
Nor will I part company with these, or close up the
Greek ranks of farmers, (in which I must not forget
the great schoolmaster, Theophrastus,) until I cull a
Digitized by VjOOQIC
26 WET DAYS.
sample of the Anthology, and plant it for a guidon at
the head of the column, — a little bannerol of music,
touching upon our topic, as daintily as the bees touch
the flowering tips of the wild thyme.
It is by Zonas the Sardian : —
At d* Syers ^oir^aX aififih^tdeg wcpa fdhaacLi,
K. r. X,, —
Rnd the rendering by Mr. Hay : —
"Te nimble honey-making bees, the flowers are m their prime;
Come now and taste the little buds of sweetly breathing thyme,
Of tender poppies all so fair, or bits of raisin sweet.
Or down that decks the apple tribe, or fragrant violet;
Come, nibble on, — ^your vessels store with honey while you can,
In order that the hive-protecting, bee-preserving Pan
May have a tasting for himself, and that the hand so rude.
That cuts away the comb, may leave yourselves some little food."
Cato.
T EAVING now this murmur of the bees upon the
•*-^ banks of the Pactolus, we will slip over-seas to
Tusculum, where Cato was bom, who was the oldest of
the Eoman writers upon agriculture ; and thence into
the Sabine territory, where, upon an estate of his father's,
in the midst of the beautiful country lying northward
of the Monte Gennaro, (the Lucretilis of Horace,) he
learned the art of good farming.
In what this art consisted in his day, he tells us in
short, cracklinfT speech: — "JWwmw, bene arare ie-
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
CATO. 27
srnidum, arare ; tertiumj stercorare." Foi the rest, ha
says, choose good seed, sow thickly, and pull all the
weeds. Nothing more would be needed to grow as
good a crop upon the checkered plateau imder my win
dow as ever fattened among the Sabine Hills.
Has the art come to a stand-still, then ; and shall we
take to reading Cato on fair days, as well as rainy ?
There has been advance, without doubt ; but all the
advance in the world would not take away the edge
from truths, stated as Cato knew how to state thenau
There is very much of what is called Agricultural
Science, nowadays, which is — rubbish. Science is
sound, and agriculture always an honest art; but the
mixture, not uncommonly, is bad, — no fair marriage;
but a monstrous concubinage, with a monstrous progeny
of muddy treatises and disquisitions which confuse more
than they instruct In contrast with these, it is no won-
der that the observations of such a man as Cato, whose
energies had been kept alive by service in the field,
and whose tongue had been educated in the Roman
Senate, should carry weight with them. The grand
truths on which successful agriculture rests, and which
simple experience long ago demonstrated, cannot be
kept out of view, nor can they be dwarfed by any im-
position of learning. Science may explain them, or
illustrate or extend; but it cannot shake their pre-
ponderating influence upon the crop of the year. As
Digitized by VjOOQIC
58 WET DA YS,
respects many other arts, the initial truths may be Icm
sight of. and overlaid by the mass of succeeding devel
opments, — not fakified, but so belittled as practically
to be counted for nothing. In this respect, agriculture
is exceptional. The old story is always the safe story
you must plough and plough again ; and manure ; and
sow good seed, and enough ; and pull the weeds ; and
as sure as the rain falls, the crop will come.
Many nice additions to this method of treatment,
which my fine-farming friends will suggest, are antici-
pated by the old Roman, if we look far enough into his
book. Thus, he knew the uses of a harrow ; he knew
the wisdom of ploughing in a green crop ; he had
steeps for his seed ; he knew how to drain off the
surface-water, — nay, there is very much in his account
of the proper preparation of ground for olive-trees, or
vine-setting, which looks like a mastery of the princi-
ples that govern the modem system of drainage.*
Of what particular service recent investigations m
science have been to the practical farmer, and what
positive and available aid, beyond what could be de-
rived from a careful study of the Eoman masters, they
put into the hands of an intelligent worker, who is till-
ing ground simply for pecuniary advantage, I shall hopi
to inquire and discourse upon some other day: when
that day comes, we will fling out the banner of ^he
* XLm. " Solcos, si locus aquosus erit, alveatos esse oportet," «t&
Digitized by VjOOQIC
CATO »%
nineteenth century, and give a gun to Liebig, and John
son, and the rest.
Meantime, as a fanner who endeavors to keep posted
in all the devices for pushing lands which have an awk-
ward habit of yielding poor crops into the better habit
of yielding large ones, I will not attempt to conceal the
chagrin with which I find this curmudgeon of a Roman
Senator, living two centuries before Christ, and north-
ward of Monte Gennaro, who never heard of " Hovey's
Root-Cutter," or of the law of primaries, laying down
rules * of culture so clear, so apt, so full, that I, who
have the advantages of two thousand years, find nothing
in them to laugh at, unless it be a few oblations to
the gods ; f and this, considering that I am just now
bmning a little incense (Havana) to the nymph Volutia,
is uncalled for.
And if Senator Cato were to wake up to-morrow, in
the white house that stares through the rain yonder,
and were to open his little musty vellum of slipshod
maxims, and, in faith of it, start a rival farm in the
bean-line, or in vine-growing, — keeping clear of the
newspapers, — I make no doubt but he would prove
as thrifly a neighbor as my good friend the Deacon.
We nineteenth-century men, at work among out
cabbages, clipping off the purslane and the twitch-grass,
* This mention, of conrse, excludes the Senator's formtdcB fr* im
gofliiti, aperients, cattle-nostrums, and pickled pork,
t CXXXrV. Cato, De Re Busticd.
Digitized by VjOOQIC
80 WET DAYS.
are disposed to assume a very complacent attitude, ai
we lean upon our hoe-handles, — as if we were doing
tall things in the way of illustrating physiology and the
cognate sciences. But the truth is, old Laertes, near
three thousand years ago, in his slouch cap and greasy
beard, was hoeing up in the same way his purslane and
twitch-grass, in his bean-patch on the hills of Ithaca.
The difference between us, so far as the crop and the
tools go, is, after all,.ignominiously small, ffe dreaded
the weevil in his beans, and we the club-foot in our cab-
bages ; we have the " Herald,*' and he had none ; we
have " Plantation-Bitters," and he had his jug of the
Biblian wine.
Varro.
II yr VARRO, another Roman farmer, lies between the
•^*-*-* same covers ** De Re Rustic^," with Cato, and
seems to have had more literary tact, though less of
blunt sagacity. Yet he challenges at once our confi-
dence by telling us so frankly the occasion of his writ-
ing upon such a subject. Life, he says, is a bubble, —
and the life of an old man a bubble about to break. He
is eighty, and must pack his luggage to go out of this
world. {^^ Annus octogesimus admonet me, tU sarcinai
colligam ajUequam proficiscar e vita") Therefore he
writes down for his wife, Fundania, the rules by which
she may manage the farm.
Digitized by VjOOQIC
VARRO n
And a very respectably old lady she must have lieen,