edendo vincit," which illustrates my present
point. The Romans achieved their results by thoroughness and patience.
It was thus that they defeated Hannibal and it was thus that they
built their farm houses and fences, cultivated their fields, their
vineyards and their oliveyards, and bred and fed their live stock.
They seem to have realized that there are no short cuts in the
processes of nature, and that the law of compensations is invariable.
The foundation of their agriculture was the fallow[1] and one finds
them constantly using it as a simile--in the advice not to breed a
mare every year, as in that not to exact too much tribute from a bee
hive. Ovid even warns a lover to allow fallow seasons to intervene in
his courtship.

While one can find instruction in their practice even today, one
can benefit even more from their agricultural philosophy, for the
characteristic of the American farmer is that he is in too much of a
hurry.

The ancient literature of farm management was voluminous. Varro cites
fifty Greek authors on the subject whose works he knew, beginning with
Hesiod and Xenophon. Mago of Carthage wrote a treatise in the Punic
tongue which was so highly esteemed that the Roman Senate ordered it
translated into Latin, but, like most of the Greeks,[2] it is now lost
to us except in the literary tradition.

Columella says that it was Cato who taught Agriculture to speak Latin.
Cato's book, written in the middle of the second century B. C, was the
first on the subject in Latin; indeed, it was one of the very first
books written in that vernacular at all. Of the other Latin writers
whose bucolic works have survived, Varro and Virgil wrote at the
beginning of the Augustan Age and were followed by the Spanish
Columella under Tiberius, and by Pliny (with his Natural History)
under Titus. After them (and "a long way after," as Mr. Punch says)
came in the fourth century the worthy but dull Palladius, who supplied
the hornbook used by the agricultural monks throughout the Dark Ages.

MARCUS PORCIUS CATO (B.C. 234-149), known in history as the elder
Cato, was the type of Roman produced by the most vigorous days of
the Republic. Born at Tusculum on the narrow acres which his peasant
forefathers had tilled in the intervals of military service, he
commenced advocate at the country assizes, followed his fortunes to
Rome and there became a leader of the metropolitan bar. He saw gallant
military service in Spain and in Gr