anguing
from the rostra, to turn his back upon the Comitium, where the
Senators gathered, and address himself directly to the people
assembled in the Forum. The act was significant as indicating that the
sovereignty had changed place.]

[Footnote 51: Tremelius Scrofa was the author of a treatise on
agriculture, which Columella cites, but which has not otherwise
survived.]

[Footnote 52: "It was a received opinion amongst the antients that a
large, busy, well peopled village, situated in a country thoroughly
cultivated, was a more magnificent sight than the palaces of noblemen
and princes in the midst of neglected lands." Harte's _Essays on
Husbandry_, p. 11. This is a delightful book, the ripe product of a
gentleman and a scholar. In the middle of the eighteenth century it
advocated what we are still advocating--that agriculture, as the basis
of national wealth, deserves the study and attention of the highest
intelligence; specifically it proposed the introduction of new grasses
and forage crops (alfalfa above all others) to enable the land to
support more live stock. It was published in 1764, just after France
had ceded to England by the Treaty of Paris all of her possessions in
America east of the Mississippi River; and not the least interesting
passages of Harte's book are those proposing an agricultural
development of the newly acquired territory between Lake Illinois
(Michigan) and the Mississippi, which he suggests may be readily
brought under cultivation with the aid of the buffaloes of the
country. He shrewdly says: "Maize may be raised in this part of Canada
to what quantity we please, for it grows there naturally in great
abundance." It happened, however, that a few years later, in 1778,
Col. George Rogers Clark of Virginia made a certain expedition through
the wilderness to the British outpost at Vincennes, which saved
England the trouble of taking Harte's advice, but that it has not been
neglected may be evident from the fact that less than a century and
a half later, or in 1910, the State of Illinois produced 415 million
bushels of maize, besides twice as much oats and half as much wheat as
did old England herself in the same year of grace.

Harte was the travelling governor of that young Mr. Stanhope, to whom
my lord Chesterfield wrote his famous worldly wise letters. He was the
author also of a _Life of Gustavus Adolphus_, which was a failure. Dr.
Johnson, who liked Harte, said: "It was unlucky in com