r them to be sold by
auction, and in the same way should sell the oil, if the price of oil
has risen; likewise the superfluous wine and corn of the estate. He
should also order to be sold worn-out bulls, blemished cattle,
blemished sheep, wool, hides, any plow that is old, old tools, old
slaves, slaves who are diseased, or anything else which is useless,
for the owner of a farm must be a seller and not a purchaser.

The owner of a farm and of slaves must begin to study in early manhood
the cultivation and sowing of the land. He should, however, think a
long time before building his villa, but not about farming his
property, which he should set about at once. Let him wait until his
thirty-sixth year and then build, provided his whole property is under
cultivation. So build that neither the villa be disproportionately
small in comparison with the farm nor the farm in comparison with the
villa. It behooves a slave-owner to have a well-built country house,
containing a wine-cellar, a place for storing olive-oil, and casks in
such numbers that he may look forward with delight to a time of
scarcity and high prices, and this will add not only to his wealth,
but to his influence and reputation. He must have wine-presses of the
first order, that his wine may be well made. When the olives have been
picked, let oil be at once made or it will turn out rancid. Recollect
that every year the olives are shaken from the trees in great number
by violent storms. If you gather them up quickly and have vessels
ready to receive them, the storm will have done them no harm and the
oil will be all the greener and better. If the olives be on the ground
or even on the barn floor too long, the oil made from them will be
fetid. Olive-oil will be always good and sweet if it be promptly made.

The following are the duties of a steward: He must maintain strict
discipline, and see that the festivals are observed. While he keeps
his hands off the property of a neighbor, let him look well to his
own. The slaves are to be kept from quarreling. If any of them commits
a fault, he should be punished in a kindly manner. The steward must
see that the slaves are comfortable and suffer neither from cold nor
hunger. By keeping them busy he will prevent them from running into
mischief or stealing. If the steward sets his face against evil doing,
evil will not be done by them. His master must call him to task if he
let evil doing go unpunished. If one slave do him