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Book I. AGRICULTURE OF ANTIQUITY.© 9

autumn, another in spring, and a third immediately before sowing the seed. Manures were applied: in Homer, an old king is found manuring his fields with his own hands; and the invention of manures is ascribed by Pliny to the Grecian king Augeas,‘The- ophrastus enumerates six different species of manures; and adds, that a mixture of soils produces the same effects as manure. Clay, he says, should be mixed with sand, and sand with clay. The seed was sown by hand, and covered witha rake. Corn was reaped with a sickle; bound in sheaves; carted to a well-prepared threshing-floor, in an airy situation, where it might be threshed and fanned by the wind, as is still practised in modern Greece, Italy, and other countries of the continent. Afterwards it was laid up in bins, or chests, or granaries, and taken out as wanted by the family to be pounded in mortars, or quern-mills into meal. Thorns and other plants for hedges were procured from the woods, as we find from a passage in Homer, in which he represents Ulysses as finding Laertes digging and preparing to plant a row of quick-sets.(Odyss. lib. xxiv.)

24. The implements enumerated by Hesiod, are a plough, of which he recommends two to be provided in case of accident; a cart with two low wheels, and ten spans (seven feet six inches) in width, The plough consisted of three parts; the share-beam,, the draught-pole, and the plough-tail. The share-beam is to be made of oak, and the other parts of elm or bay: they are to be joined firm with nails. Antiquarians are not agreed as to the exact form of this implement. Gouguet conjectures it may not have been unlike one still in use in the same countries, and in the south of France: others, with greater probability, refer to the more simple plough still in use in Magna Grecia and Sicily(fig. 7.), originally Greek colonies. The rake, sickle, and oxen-goad, are men- tioned; but nothing said of their construction, or of spades, or other manual implements..

25. The beasts of labor mentioned, are oxen and mules: the former were most common; and it would appear, from a passage in Homer(JJ. lib. xiii. v. 704.) were yoked by the horns. Four and a half years is recommended as the best age for purchasing oxen: in. winter, both oxen and mules were fed under cover, on hay and straw, mast, and the leaves of vines and various trees.

26. The most desirable age for a ploughman is forty: he must be well fed, go naked in summer, rise and go to work very early, and have a sort of annual feast, proper rest, and good food and clothing:-—coats of kid skins, worsted socks, and half boots of ox hides in winter. He must not let his eye wander about while at plough, but cut a straight furrow; nor be absent in mind when sowing the seed, lest he sow the same furrow twice. The vine is to be pruned and staked in due season; the vintage made in fine weather, and. the grapes left a few days to dry, and then carried to the press.

27. The products of Grecian agriculture, were sheep, goats, swine, cattle, mules, asses, and horses: the grains and legumes at present in cultivation; and the vine, fig, olive, apple, date, and other fruits. It does not appear that artificial grasses or herbage plants were in use; but recourse was had, in times of scarcity, to the mistletoe and the cytisus: what plant is meant by the latter designation is not agreed on; some consider it the medicago arborea, Linn., and others the common lucerne. Hay was, in all probability, obtained from the meadows and pastures, which were used in common: flax, and pro- bably hemp, was grown. Wood for fuel, and timber for construction, were obtained from the natural forests, which, in Solon’s time, abounded with wolves. Nothing is said of the olive or fig by Hesiod; but they were cultivated in the fields for oil and food, as well as the vine for wine. One of Solon’s laws directs, that olive and fig trees must be planted nine feet from a neighbour’s ground, on account of their spreading roots: other trees might be planted within five feet.

28. In Hesiod’s time almost every citizen was a husbandman, and had a portion of land which he cultivated himself, with the aid of his family, and perhaps one or two slaves; and the produce, whether for food or clothing, appears to have been manufactured at home.‘The progress of society would, no doubt, introduce the usual division of labor and of arts; and commercial cultivators, or such as raised produce for the purpose of exchange, would in consequence arise; but when, and to what extent this was carried, at the time Greece became a Roman province(B. C. 100), the ancient writers afford us no means of ascertaining.

Sect. III. Of the Agriculture of the Jews, and other nations of Antiquity.

29. Of the agriculture of the nations contemporary with the Egyptians and Greeks nothing is distinctly known; but assuming it as most probable that agriculture was first brought into notice in Egypt, it may be concluded that most other countries, as well as Greece, would begin by imitating the practices ef that country.

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