s'est souvent plaint que l'augmentation
des paturage diminuoit les habitans."

In the introduction to his Book Two (_post_, p. 179) Varro states the
sound conclusion, that the two kinds of husbandry should be combined
on the same land. Sir Anthony Fitzherbert knew this: "An housbande can
not well thryue by his corne without he haue other cattell, nor by his
cattell without corne. For els he shall be a byer, a borrower or a
beggar."]

[Footnote 64: This is the explanation of why Aesop's fox found the
grapes to be sour which grew on a trellis, for he had expected to find
them of easy access on the ground. Aesop was a Phrygian, and, while
Bentley has proved that Aesop never wrote the existing fables which go
by that name, yet it is recognized that they are of Oriental origin
and it is evident that that of the Fox and the Grapes came out of
Asia, where, as Varro says, the grapes were usually allowed to grow on
the ground.]

[Footnote 65: One is tempted to include here Pliny's observations upon
the tests of good soil if only for the sake of his description of one
of the sweetest sensations of the farmer every where, the aroma of new
ploughed fertile land:--

"Those unguents which have a taste of earth are better," says Cicero,
"than those which smack of saffron," it seeming to him more to the
purpose to express himself by the word taste than smell. And such is
the fact no doubt, that soil is the best which has the savour of a
perfume. If the question should be put to us, what is this odour of
the earth that is held in such estimation; our answer is that it
is the same that is often to be recognized at the moment of sunset
without the necessity even of turning up the ground, at the spots
where the extremities of the rainbow have been observed to meet the
earth: as also, when after long continued drought, the rain has soaked
the ground. Then it is that the earth exhales the divine odour that is
so peculiarly its own, and to which, imparted to it by the sun, there
is no perfume however sweet that can possibly be compared. It is this
odour which the earth, when turned up, ought to emit, and which, when
once found, can never deceive any person: and this will be found the
best criterion for judging of the quality of the soil. Such, too, is
the odour that is usually perceived in land newly cleared when an
ancient forest has been just cut down; its excellence is a thing that
is universally admitted.]

[Footnote 66: The _actu