e operation of a vast estate, the rich can
afford to provide such servants for every department of the work:
for if towns and villages are far distant from the farm, they supply
blacksmiths and all other necessary craftsmen and keep them on the
place, in order to prevent the hands from leaving the farm and
spending working days in going leisurely to and from the shop when
they might more profitably be engaged on what should be done in the
fields. So Saserna's book lays down the rule that "No one may leave
the farm except the overseer, the butler, or such a one as the
overseer sends on an errand. If any one disobeys this rule, he shall
be punished for it, but if he disobeys a second time the overseer
shall be punished." This rule may be better stated that no one should
leave the farm without the approval of the overseer, and, without the
consent of the master, not even the overseer, for more than a day at
a time, but in no event more frequently than the business of the farm
requires.

On the third point, conveniences of transportation make a farm more
profitable, and these are whether the roads are in such condition that
wagons can use them smoothly, or whether there are rivers nearby which
can be navigated. We know that each of these means of transportation
is available to many farms.

The fourth point, which is concerned with how your neighbour has
planted his land, also relates to your profits: because if he has an
oak forest near your boundary, you cannot profitably plant olives in
that vicinity, for the oak is so perverse in its effect upon the olive
that not only will your trees bear less but they will even avoid the
oaks and bend away from them until they are prostrate on the ground,
as the vine is wont to do when planted near vegetables. Like the oak,
a grove of thickly planted full grown walnut trees renders sterile all
the surrounding land.

2 deg. CONCERNING THE EQUIPMENT OF A FARM

XVII. I have spoken of the four points of husbandry which relate to
the land to be cultivated and also of those other four points which
have to do with the outside relations of that land: now I will speak
of those things which pertain to the cultivation of the land. Some
divide this subject into two parts, men and those assistants to men
without which agriculture cannot be carried on. Others divide it into
three parts, the instruments of agriculture which are articulate,
inarticulate and mute: the articulate being the