own into narrow lands, in order to promote a more effectual
surface-drainage. In the midst of it, however, we come upon a stereorary
maxim, which is, to say the least, of doubtful worth:--"Nor is there any
sort of earth which will not make very rich manure, by being laid a due
time in standing water, till it is fully impregnated with the virtue of
the water." His British translator, Professor Bradley, does, indeed,
give a little note of corroborative testimony. But I would not advise
any active farmer, on the authority either of General Xenophon or of
Professor Bradley, to transport his surface-soil very largely to the
nearest frog-pond, in the hope of finding it transmuted into manure. The
absorptive and retentive capacity of soils is, to be sure, the bone just
now of very particular contention; but whatever that capacity may be,
it certainly needs something more palpable than the virtue of standing
water for its profitable development.

Here, again, is very neat evidence of how much simple good sense has
to do with husbandry: Socrates, who is supposed to have no particular
knowledge of the craft, says to his interlocutor,--"You have satisfied
me that I am not ignorant in husbandry; and yet I never had any master
to instruct me in it."

"It is not," says Xenophon, "difference in knowledge or opportunities of
knowledge that makes some farmers rich and others poor; but that which
makes some poor and some rich is that the former are negligent and lazy,
the latter industrious and thrifty."

Next, we have this masculine _ergo_:--"Therefore we may know that those
who will not learn such sciences as they might get their living by, or
do not fall into husbandry, are either downright fools, or else propose
to get their living by robbery or by begging." (sec. xx.)

This is a good clean cut at politicians, office-holders, and other
such beggar craft, through more than a score of centuries,--clean as
classicism can make it: the Attic euphony in it, and all the aroma of
age.

Once more, and it is the last of the "Oeconomica," we give this charming
bit of New-Englandism:--"I remember my father had an excellent rule,"
(_Ischomachus loquitur_,) "which he advised me to follow: that, if ever
I bought any land, I should by no means purchase that which had been
already well-improved, but should choose such as had never been tilled,
either through neglect of the owner, or for want of capacity to do it;
for he observed, that, if I were