fterwards grows
sweet as it matures; and being covered with tendrils is never without a
moderate warmth, and yet is able to ward off the fiery heat of the sun.
Can anything be richer in product or more beautiful to contemplate?
It is not its utility only, as I said before, that charms me, but the
method of its cultivation and the natural process of its growth: the
rows of uprights, the cross-pieces for the tops of the plants, the tying
up of the vines and their propagation by layers, the pruning, to which
I have already referred, of some shoots, the setting of others. I need
hardly mention irrigation, or trenching and digging the soil, which much
increase its fertility. As to the advantages of manuring I have spoken
in my book on agriculture. The learned Hesiod did not say a single word
on this subject, though he was writing on the cultivation of the soil;
yet Homer, who in my opinion was many generations earlier, represents
Laertes as softening his regret for his son by cultivating and manuring
his farm. Nor is it only in cornfields and meadows and vineyards and
plantations that a farmer's life is made cheerful. There are the garden
and the orchard, the feeding of sheep, the swarms of bees, endless
varieties of flowers. Nor is it only planting out that charms: there
is also grafting--surely the most ingenious invention ever made by
husbandmen.

16. I might continue my list of the delights of country life; but even
what I have said I think is somewhat over long. However, you must
pardon me; for farming is a very favourite hobby of mine, and old age is
naturally rather garrulous--for I would not be thought to acquit it of
all faults.

Well, it was in a life of this sort that Manius Curius, after
celebrating triumphs over the Samnites, the Sabines, and Pyrrhus, spent
his last days. When I look at his villa--for it is not far from my
own--I never can enough admire the man's own frugality or the spirit of
the age. As Curius was sitting at his hearth the Samnites, who brought
him a large sum of gold, were repulsed by him; for it was not, lie
said, a fine thing in his eyes to possess gold, but to rule those who
possessed it. Could such a high spirit fail to make old age pleasant?

But to return to farmers--not to wander from my own metier. Tn those
days there were senators, _i. e_. old men, on their farms. For L.
Quinctius Cincinnatus was actually at the plough when word was brought
him that he had been named Dictator. It