taria_ because a jugerum yields three
hundred amphorae of wine," and, looking at me, he added, "indeed L.
Martius, your chief engineer, said that the vines on his Faventine
farm yielded that much.[48] The Italian farmer looks chiefly for
two things in considering a farm, whether it will yield a harvest
proportioned to the capital and labour he must invest, and whether the
location is healthy. Whoever neglects either of these considerations
and despite them proposes to carry on a farm, is a fool and should be
taken in charge by a committee of his relatives.[49] For no sane man is
willing to spend on an agricultural operation time and money which he
knows he cannot recoup, nor even if he sees a likely profit, if it
must be at the risk of losing all by an evil climate.

"But there are here present those who can discourse on this subject
with more authority than I, for I see C. Licinius Stolo and Cn.
Tremelius Scrofa approaching. It was the ancestor of the first of
these who brought in the law for the regulation of land-holding; for
the law which forbade a Roman citizen to own more than 500 jugera of
land was proposed by that Licinius who acquired the cognomen of Stolo
on account of his diligence in cultivating his land: he is said to
have dug around his trees so thoroughly that there could not be found
on his farm a single one of those suckers which spring up from the
ground at the roots of trees and are called _stolones_. Of the same
family was that other C. Licinius who, when he was tribune of the
people, 365 years after the expulsion of the Kings, first transferred
the Sovereign function of law making from the Comitium to the Forum,
thus as it were constituting that area the 'farm' of the entire
people.[50] The other whom I see come hither is Cn. Tremelius Scrofa,
your colleague on the Committee of Twenty for the division of the
Campanian lands, a man distinguished by all the virtues and considered
to be the Roman most expert in agriculture.[51]

"And justly so," I exclaimed, "for his farms are a more pleasing
spectacle to many on account of their clean cultivation than the
stately palaces of others;[52] when one goes to visit his country
place, one sees granaries and not picture galleries, as at the 'farm'
of Lucullus.[53] Indeed," I added, "the apple market at the head of the
Sacred Way is the very image of Scrofa's fruit house."

As the new comers joined us, Stolo inquired: "Have we arrived after
dinner is over, f