s, as he says, enjoy the
fruits of another's folly. The _cacoethes aedificandi_ is a familiar
disease among country gentlemen.]

[Footnote 19: Columella (I,4) makes the acute observation that the
country house should also be agreeable to the owner's wife if he
wishes to get the full measure of enjoyment out of it. Mago, the
Carthaginian, advised to, "if you buy a farm, sell your house in town,
lest you be tempted to prefer the cultivation of the urban gods to
those of the country."]

[Footnote 20: According to German scholarship the accepted text of
Cato's version of this immemorial epigram is a model of the brevity
which is the test of wit, "Frons occipitio prior est." Pliny probably
quoting from memory, expands it to "Frons domini plus prodest quam
occipitium." Palladius (I, 6) gives another version: "Praesentia
domini provectus est agri." It is found in some form in almost every
book on agriculture since Cato, until we reach the literature in which
science has taken the place of wisdom--in the Byzantine _Geoponica_,
the Italian _Crescenzi_, the Dutch _Heresbach_, the French _Maison
Rustique_, and the English _Gervase Markkam. Poor Richard's Almanack_
gives it twice, as "the foot of a master is the best manure" and
"the eye of a master will do more work than both his hands." It is
perennial in its appeal. The present editor saw it recently in the
German comic paper _Fliegende Blaetter_. But the jest is much older
than Cato. It appears in Aeschylus, _Persae_, 171 and Xenophon employs
it in _Oeconomicus_ (XII, 20):

"The reply attributed to the barbarian," added Ischomachus, "appears
to me to be exceedingly to the purpose, for when the King of Persia
having met with a fine horse and wishing to have it fattened as soon
as possible, asked one of those who were considered knowing about
horses what would fatten a horse soonest, it is said that he answered
'the master's eye.'"]

[Footnote 21: The English word "orchard" scarcely translates
_arbustum_, but every one who has been in Italy will recall the
endless procession of small fields of maize and rye and alfalfa
through which serried ranks of mulberry or feathery elm trees, linked
with the charming drop and garland of the vines, seem to dance toward
one in the brilliant sunlight, like so many Greek maidens on a frieze.
These are _arbusta_.]

[Footnote 22: Cato was a strong advocate of the cabbage; he called
it the best of the vegetables and urged that it be planted