ians
I have ever heard of, my father, as it seems to me, had the greatest
love for agricultural pursuits.

[32] i.e. out of cultivation, whether as corn land or for fruit trees,
viz. olive, fig, vine, etc.

[33] Or, "be it a dead thing or a live pet." Cf. Plat. "Theaet." 174
B; "Laws," 789 B, 790 D, 819 B; "C. I." 1709.

[34] Cf. "Horsem." iii. 1; and see Cowley's Essay above referred to.

[35] Or, "is susceptible of greater improvement."

[36] Or, "discovery." See "Anab." III. v. 12; "Hell." IV. v. 4;
"Hunting," xiii. 13.

[37] Or, "nor did he rack his brains to discover it." See "Mem." III.
v. 23. Cf. Aristoph. "Clouds," 102, {merimnophrontistai}, minute
philosophers.

[38] "He could not see an estate of the sort described but he must
fall over head and ears in love with it at first sight; have it he
must."

When I heard this, I could not resist asking a question; Ischomachus (I
said), did your father retain possession of all the farms he put under
cultivation, or did he part with them whenever he was offered a good
price?

He parted with them, without a doubt (replied Ischomachus), but then at
once he bought another in the place of what he sold, and in every case
an untilled farm, in order to gratify his love for work.

As you describe him (I proceeded), your father must truly have
been formed by nature with a passion for husbandry, not unlike that
corn-hunger which merchants suffer from. You know their habits: by
reason of this craving after corn, [39] whenever they hear that corn is
to be got, they go sailing off to find it, even if they must cross the
Aegean, or the Euxine, or the Sicilian seas. And when they have got as
much as ever they can get, they will not let it out of their sight, but
store it in the vessel on which they sail themselves, and off they go
across the seas again. [40] Whenever they stand in need of money, they
will not discharge their precious cargo, [41] at least not in haphazard
fashion, wherever they may chance to be; but first they find out where
corn is at the highest value, and where the inhabitants will set the
greatest store by it, and there they take and deliver the dear article.
Your father's fondness for agriculture seems to bear a certain family
resemblance to this passion.

[39] Lit. "of their excessive love for corn."

[40] Lit. "they carry it across the seas again, and that, too, after
having stored it in the hold of the ve