Sir Anthony Fitzherbert (1470-1538) was the English judge whose law books are, or should be, known to all lawyers.  His Boke of Husbandry, published in 1534, is one of the classics of English agriculture, and justly, for it is full of shrewd observation and deliberate wisdom expressed in a virile style, with agreeable leaven of piety and humour.  Fitzherbert anticipated a modern poet, Henley, in one of his most happy phrases:  “Ryght so euery man is capitayne of his owne soule”.  The Husbandry is best available to the modern reader in the edition by Skeat published for the English Dialect Society in 1882.]

[Footnote 29:  Cato is careful not to undertake to say how this may be assured; another evidence of his wisdom.]

[Footnote 30:  In his instructive discourse on ploughing, Columella (II, 4) gives the key to Cato’s warning against ploughing land when it is in the condition he calls rotten (cariosa): 

“Rich land, which holds moisture a long time, should be broken up (proscindere) at the season when the weather is beginning to be warm and the weeds are developing, so that none of their seed may mature:  but it should be ploughed with such close furrows that one can with difficulty distinguish where the plough share has been, for in that way all the weeds are uprooted and destroyed.

“The spring ploughing should be followed up with frequent stirring of the soil until it is reduced to dust, so that there may be no necessity, or very little, of harrowing after the land is seeded:  for the ancient Romans said that a field was badly ploughed which had to be harrowed after the seed had been sown.

“A farmer should himself make sure that his ploughing has been well done, not alone by inspection, for the eye is often amused by a smooth surface which in fact conceals clods, but also by experiment, which is less likely to be deceived, as by driving a stout stick through the furrows:  if it penetrates the soil readily and without obstruction, it will be evident that all the land there about is in good order:  but if some part harder than the rest resists the pressure, it will be clear that the ploughing has been badly done.  When the ploughmen see this done from time to time they are not guilty of clod hopping.

“Hence wet land should be broken up after the Ides of April, and, when it has been ploughed at that season, it should be worked again, after an interval of twenty days, about the time of the solstice, which is the eighth or ninth day before the Kalends of July, and again the third time about the Kalends of September, for it is not the practice of experienced farmers to till the land in the interval after the summer solstice, unless the ground shall have been soaked with a heavy down-pour of sudden rain, like those of winter, as does some times happen at this season.  In that event there is no reason why the fallow should not be cultivated during the month of July.  But when you do till at this season beware lest the land be worked while it is muddy:  or when, having been sprinkled by a shower, it is in the condition which the country people call varia and cariosa, that is to say, when, after a long drought, a light rain has moistened the surface of the upturned sod but has not soaked to the bottom of the furrow.