spite
the rain, such as washing and pitching the wine vats, cleaning out
the barns, sorting the grain, hauling out and composting the manure,
cleaning seed, mending the old gear, and making new, mending the
smocks and hoods furnished for the hands. On feast days the old
ditches should be mended, the public roads worked, briers cut down,
the garden dug, the meadow cleaned, the hedges trimmed and the
clippings collected and burned, the fish pond cleaned out. On such
days, furthermore, the slaves' rations should be cut down as compared
with what is allowed when they are working in the fields in fine
weather.

When this routine has been discussed quietly and with good humour and
is thoroughly understood by the overseer, you should give orders for
the completion of the work which has been neglected.

The accounts of money, supplies and provisions should then be
considered. The overseer should report what wine and oil has been
sold, what price he got, what is on hand, and what remains for sale.
Security should be taken for such accounts as ought to be secured. All
other unsettled matters should be agreed upon. If any thing is needed
for the coming year, it should be bought; every thing which is not
needed should be sold. Whatever there is for lease should be leased.
Orders should be given (and take care that they are in writing) for
all work which next it is desired to have done on the farm or let to
contract. You should go over the cattle and determine what is to be
sold. You should sell the oil, if you can get your price, the surplus
wine and corn, the old cattle, the worn out oxen, and the cull sheep,
the wool and the hides, the old and sick slaves, and if any thing else
is superfluous you should sell that. The appetite of the good farmer
is to sell, not to buy.[14]

(IV) Be a good neighbour. Do not roughly give offence to your own
people. If the neighbourhood regards you kindly, you will find a
readier market for what you have to sell, you will more easily get
your work done, either on the place or by contract. If you build, your
neighbours will aid you with their services, their cattle and their
materials. If any misfortune should overtake you (which God forbid!)
they will protect you with kindly interest.[15]

_Of laying out the farm_

(I) If you ask me what is the best disposition to make of your estate,
I would say that should you have bought a farm of one hundred _jugera_
(about 66 acres) all told,[16] in th