This hypothesis will explain the paragraphs which so puzzle Niclas and Needham; it explains the evident interpolations, and the local allusions. The only extravagance in the hypothesis is its assumption that the officials of Byzantium were as rapacious as our own. Thus far, I have imagined a certain analogy between the work in view and the "Patent Office Agricultural Reports." The analogy stops here: the "Geoponica" is a good book. It is in no sense to be regarded as a work of the tenth century, or as one strictly Byzantine: nearly half the authors named are of Western origin, and I find none dating later than the fifth century,--while many, as Apuleius, Fiorentinus, Africanus, and the poor brothers Quintilii, who died under the stab of Commodus, belong to a period preceding that of Palladius. Aratus and Democritus (of Abdera) again, who are cited, are veterans of the old Greek school, who might have contributed as well to the agriculture of Thrace or Macedonia in the days of Philip as in the days of the Porphyrogenitus. The first book, of meteorologic phenomena, is nearly identical in its teachings with those of Aratus, Varro, and Virgil. The subject of field-culture is opened with the standard maxim, repeated by all the old writers, that the master's eye is invaluable.[20] The doctrine of rotation, or frequent change of crops, is laid down with unmistakable precision. A steep for seed (hellebore) is recommended, to guard against the depredations of birds or mice. In the second book, in certain chapters credited to Fiorentinus, I find, among other valuable manures mentioned, sea-weed and tide-drift, ([Greek: Ta ek tês thalassês de ekbrassomena bryodê],) which I do not recall in any other of the old writers. He also recommends the refuse of leather-dressers, and a mode of promoting putrefaction in the compost-heap, which would almost seem to be stolen from "Bommer's Method." He further urges the diversion of turbid rills, after rains, over grass lands, and altogether makes a better compend of this branch of the subject than can be found in the Roman writers proper. Grain should be cut before it is fully ripe, as the meal is the sweeter. What correspondent of our agricultural papers, suggesting this as a novelty, could believe that it stood in Greek type as early as ever Greek types were set? A farm foreman should be apt to rise early, should win the respect of his men, should fear to tell an untruth, regard religious observances, and not drink too hard.