to attend to their affairs, however, and
who will apply themselves to agriculture earnestly, my lather both
practised himself and taught me a most successful method of making
profit; for he would never allow me to buy ground already cultivated,
but exhorted me to purchase such as from want of care or want of means
in those who had possessed it, was left untilled and unplanted. He
used to say that well cultivated land cost a great sum of money and
admitted of no improvement, and he considered that land which is
unsusceptible of improvement did not give the same pleasure to the
owner as other land, but he thought that whatever a person had or
bought up that was continually growing better afforded him the highest
gratification."]

[Footnote 12: Every rural community in the Eastern part of the United
States has grown familiar with the contrast between the intelligent
amateur, who, while endeavoring earnestly to set an example of good
agriculture, fails to make expenses out of his land, and the born
farmer who is self-supporting in the practice of methods contemned
by the agricultural colleges. Too often the conclusion is drawn that
scientific agriculture will not pay; but Cato puts his finger on the
true reason. The man who does not depend on his land for his living
too often permits his farm to get what Cato calls the "spending
habit." Pliny (_H.N._ XVIII, 7) makes some pertinent observations on
the subject:

"I may possibly appear guilty of some degree of rashness in making
mention of a maxim of the ancients which will very probably be looked
upon as quite incredible, 'that nothing is so disadvantageous as to
cultivate land in the highest style of perfection.'"

And he illustrates by the example of a Roman gentleman, who, like
Arthur Young in eighteenth century England, wasted a large fortune in
an attempt to bring his lands to perfect cultivation. "To cultivate
land well is absolutely necessary," Pliny continues, "but to cultivate
it in the very highest style is mere extravagance, unless, indeed, the
work is done by the hands of a man's own family, his tenants, or those
whom he is obliged to keep at any rate."]

[Footnote 13: In this practice has been the delight of men of affairs
of all ages who turn to agriculture for relaxation. Horace cites it
with telling effect in the ode (III, 5) in which he describes the
noble serenity of mind with which Regulus returned to the torture
and certain death which awaited him at