rotation, the importance of live stock in a system of general farming,
the preservation of the chemical content of manure and the composting
of the rubbish of a farm, but they brought to their farming operations
some thing more which we have not altogether learned--the character
which made them a people of enduring achievement. Varro quotes one of
their proverbs "Romanus sedendo 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.