into view more distinctly and clearly.
It is at this epoch that the wholesale system, as regards both the
cultivation of land and the management of capital, becomes first
established under the form, and on the scale, which afterwards
prevailed; although we cannot exactly discriminate how much of that
system is traceable to earlier precedent, how much to an imitation of
the methods of husbandry and of speculation among peoples that were
earlier civilized, especially the Phoenicians, and how much to the
increasing mass of capital and the growth of intelligence in the
nation. A summary outline of these economic relations will conduce
to a more accurate understanding of the internal history of Rome.

Roman husbandry(1) applied itself either to the farming of estates, to
the occupation of pasture lands, or to the tillage of petty holdings.
A very distinct view of the first of these is presented to us in the
description given by Cato.

Farming of Estates
Their Size

The Roman land-estates were, considered as larger holdings, uniformly
of limited extent. That described by Cato had an area of 240 jugera;
a very common measure was the so-called -centuria- of 200 -jugera-.
Where the laborious culture of the vine was pursued, the unit of
husbandry was made still less; Cato assumes in that case an area of
100 -jugera-. Any one who wished to invest more capital in farming
did not enlarge his estate, but acquired several estates; accordingly
the amount of 500 -jugera-,(2) fixed as the maximum which it was
allowable to occupy, has been conceived to represent the contents of
two or three estates.

Management of the Estate

Object of Husbandry

The heritable lease was not recognised in the management of Italian
private any more than of Roman public land; it occurred only in the
case of the dependent communities. Leases for shorter periods,
granted either for a fixed sum of money or on condition that the
lessee should bear all the costs of tillage and should receive in
return a share, ordinarily perhaps one half, of the produce,(3) were
not unknown, but they were exceptional and a makeshift; so that no
distinct class of tenant-farmers grew up in Italy.(4) Ordinarily
therefore the proprietor himself superintended the cultivation of his
estates; he did not, however, manage them strictly in person, but only
appeared from time to time on the property in order to settle the plan
of operations, to look after its execution, and t