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Boox I. AGRICULTURE OF ANTIQUITY. 11

metal, and forked(a), such probably as we see it in use in Judea, and the land of Canaan, at the present day.

33. Vineyards were planted on rising grounds, fenced round, the soil well prepared, and a vintage-house and watch-tower built in a centrical situation(Isaiah v.2.), as is still done in European Turkey and Italy. Moses gives directions to the Jews for culti- vating the vine and other fruit-trees; the three first years after planting, the fruit is not to be eaten; the fourth, it is to be given to the Lord; and it is not till the fifth year that they are“to eat of the fruit thereof.”(Levit. xix. 25.) The intention of these precepts was to prevent the trees from being exhausted by bearing before they had ac- quired sufficient strength and establishment in the soil.

34. Of other agricultural operations and customs, it may be observed with Dr. Brown, (Antiq. of the Jews, vol. ii. part xii. sect. 5, 6.), that they differed very little from the existing practices in the same countries as described by modern travellers.

35. The agricultural produce of the Jews was the same as among the Egyptians; corn, wine, oil, fruits, milk, honey, sheep, and cattle, but not swine. The camel then, as now, was the beast of burden, and long journeys(fig. 9.); and the horse, the animal of war and luxury. The fruit of the sycamore-fig was abundant, and in general use; and grapes

attained an astonishing size, both of berry and bunch; the melon and gourd tribes were common. The returns of corn were in general good; but as neither public stores, nor corn monopolisers, seem to have existed, dearths, and their attendant miseries, happened occasionally. A number of these are mentioned in Scripture, and some of extraordinary severity.

36. Of the agriculture of the other civilized and stationary nations of this period, scarcely any thing is known. According to Herodotus, the soil of Babylon was rich, well cul- tivated, and yielded two or three hundred for one. Xenophon, in his book of Gco- nomics, bestows due encomiums on a Persian king, who examined, with his own eyes, the state of agriculture throughout his dominions; and in all such excursions, according as occasion required, bountifully rewarded the industrious, and severely discountenanced the slothful. In another place he observes, that when Cyrus distributed premiums with his own hand to diligent cultivators, it was his custom to say,‘‘ My friends, I have a like title with yourselves to the same honors and remuneration from the public; I give you no more than I have deserved in my own person; having made the self-same attempts with equal diligence and success.”((£conom. ¢. iv. sect. 16.) The same author else- where remarks, that a truly great prince ought to hold the arts of war and agriculture in the highest esteem; for by such means he will be enabled to cultivate his territories effectually, and protect them when cultivated.(Harte’s Essays, p. 19.)

37. Phenicia, a country of Asia, at the east of the Mediterranean, has the reputation of having been cultivated at an early period, and of having colonised and introduced agriculture at Carthage, Marseilles, and other places. The Pheenicians are said to have been the original occupiers of the adjoining country of Canaan; and when driven out by the Jews, to have settled in Tyre and Sidon(now Sur and Saida), in the fifteenth century B.C. They were naturally industrious; and their manufactures acquired such a superiority over those of other nations, that among the ancients, whatever was elegant, great, or pleasing, either in apparel or domestic utensils, was called Sidonian; but of their agriculture it can only be conjectured that it was Egyptian, as far as local circumstances would permit.

38. The republic of Carthage included Spain, Sicily, and Sardinia, and flourished for upwards of seven centuries previous to the second century B. C. Agriculture was practised at an early period in Sicily; and, according to some, Greece received that art from this island. Tt must have been also considerably advanced in Spain, and in the Carthaginian territory, since they had books on the subject. In 147 B. C., when Car- thage was destroyed by Scipio, and the contents of the libraries were given in presents to the princes, allies of the Romans, the senate only reserved the twenty-eight books on agriculture of the Carthaginian general Magon, which Decius Syllanus was directed to translate; and of which the Romans preserved, for a long time, the original and the translation.(EHncyc. Méthodique, art. Agriculture.)

39. Italy, and a part of the south of France, would probably be partially cultivated from the influence of the Carthaginians in Sicily and Marseilles; but the north of France, and the rest of Europe, appear to have been chiefly, if not entirely, in a wild

*B 6