slaves have been sick and others truant, the weather has been bad, and that it has been necessary to work the public roads.  When he has given these and many other excuses, you should recall to his attention the program of work which you had laid out for him on your last visit and compare it with the results attained.  If the weather has been bad, count how many stormy days there have been, and rehearse what work could have been done despite the rain, such as washing and pitching the wine vats, cleaning out the barns, sorting the grain, hauling out and composting the manure, cleaning seed, mending the old gear, and making new, mending the smocks and hoods furnished for the hands.  On feast days the old ditches should be mended, the public roads worked, briers cut down, the garden dug, the meadow cleaned, the hedges trimmed and the clippings collected and burned, the fish pond cleaned out.  On such days, furthermore, the slaves’ rations should be cut down as compared with what is allowed when they are working in the fields in fine weather.

When this routine has been discussed quietly and with good humour and is thoroughly understood by the overseer, you should give orders for the completion of the work which has been neglected.

The accounts of money, supplies and provisions should then be considered.  The overseer should report what wine and oil has been sold, what price he got, what is on hand, and what remains for sale.  Security should be taken for such accounts as ought to be secured.  All other unsettled matters should be agreed upon.  If any thing is needed for the coming year, it should be bought; every thing which is not needed should be sold.  Whatever there is for lease should be leased.  Orders should be given (and take care that they are in writing) for all work which next it is desired to have done on the farm or let to contract.  You should go over the cattle and determine what is to be sold.  You should sell the oil, if you can get your price, the surplus wine and corn, the old cattle, the worn out oxen, and the cull sheep, the wool and the hides, the old and sick slaves, and if any thing else is superfluous you should sell that.  The appetite of the good farmer is to sell, not to buy.[14]

(IV) Be a good neighbour.  Do not roughly give offence to your own people.  If the neighbourhood regards you kindly, you will find a readier market for what you have to sell, you will more easily get your work done, either on the place or by contract.  If you build, your neighbours will aid you with their services, their cattle and their materials.  If any misfortune should overtake you (which God forbid!) they will protect you with kindly interest.[15]

Of laying out the farm

(I) If you ask me what is the best disposition to make of your estate, I would say that should you have bought a farm of one hundred jugera (about 66 acres) all told,[16] in the best situation, it should be planted as follows:  1 deg. a vineyard, if it promises a good yield, 2 deg. an irrigated garden, 3 deg. an osier bed, 4 deg. an olive yard, 5 deg. a meadow, 6 deg. a corn field, 7 deg. a wood lot, 8 deg. a cultivated orchard, and 9 deg. a mast grove[17].