find real and multiplied evidences of the progress of the art; _facts_, substituted for _conjectures_ and _inferences_. Cato, Varro, Columella, Virgil and Pliny, wrote on the subject, and it is from their works we derive the following brief exposition of Roman husbandry. [1] The best practical illustration of this opinion is found in the valley of the Po--where "every rood of earth maintains its man." [2] Xenophon wrote several treatises on husbandry, and gave public lectures on it at Scillonte, whither a weak and wicked government had banished him. The plough, the great instrument of agricultural labour, was well known and generally used among them; it was drawn exclusively by horned cattle. Of fossile _manures_, we know that they used _lime_, and probably _marle_,[3] and that those of animal and vegetable basis, were carefully collected. Attention to this subject, even made part of the national religion; the dunghill had its god, and Stercutus, his temple and worshippers. Their corn crops were abundant; besides _barley_ and _far_,[4] they had three species of _wheat_; the _robus_ or red--the _siligo_ or white--and the _triticum trimestre_, or summer wheat; they had besides millet, panis, zea (Indian corn) and rye, all of which producing a flour convertible into bread, were known by the common name of _frumentum_. Leguminous crops were frequent; the lupin in particular was raised in abundance, and besides being employed as a manure,[5] entered extensively into the subsistence of men, cattle and poultry. The cultivation of garden vegetables was well understood and employed many hands; and meadows, natural and artificial, were brought to great perfection. Lucern and fenugrec were the basis of the latter, and peas, rye and a mixture of barley, beans and peas, called _farrago_, were occasionally used in the stables as green food. Their flocks were abundant, and formed their first representatives of wealth, as is sufficiently indicated by their word _pecunia_. Vines and olives, and their products (wine and oil) had a full share of attention and use. The rearing of poultry made an important part of domestic economy, nor were apiaries and fish ponds forgotten or neglected. [3] For the first part of this assertion we have the authority of Pliny; for the latter, the practice of their colonies both in Gaul and Britain. [4] Of this last, there were three kinds, neither of which is now cultivated. [5] The lupinus albus of Linneus: "many other vegetables are used for this purpose, particularly the _bean_, but do not answer as well as the _lupin_; when this is heated in an oven and then buried, it forms the most powerful of all manures." T. C. L. Simonde. _Tableau de L'agriculture Toscane_.