Soc. No, in very sooth, not ignorant of that Ischomachus, or anything you mentioned. That is just the puzzle, and again I beat my brains to discover why, when you put to me that question a while back: 'Had I, in brief, the knowledge how to plant?' I answered, 'No.' Till then it never would have struck me that I could say at all how planting must be done. But no sooner do you begin to question me on each particular point than I can answer you; and what is more, my answers are, you tell me, accordant with the views of an authority[23] at once so skilful and so celebrated as yourself. Really, Ischomachus, I am disposed to ask: 'Does teaching consist in putting questions?'[24] Indeed, the secret of your system has just this instant dawned upon me. I seem to see the principle in which you put your questions. You lead me through the field of my own knowledge,[25] and then by pointing out analogies[26] to what I know, persuade me that I really know some things which hitherto, as I believed, I had no knowledge of.
[23] Or, 'whose skill in farming is proverbial.'
[24] Lit. 'Is questioning after all a kind of teaching?' See Plat. 'Meno'; 'Mem.' IV. vi. 15.
[25] It appears, then, that the Xenophontean Socrates has {episteme} of a sort.
[26] Or, 'a series of resemblances,' 'close parallels,' reading {epideiknus}: or if with Breit. {apodeiknus}, transl. 'by proving such or such a thing is like some other thing known to me already.'
Isch. Do you suppose if I began to question you concerning money and its quality,[27] I could possibly persuade you that you know the method to distinguish good from false coin? Or could I, by a string of questions about flute-players, painters, and the like, induce you to believe that you yourself know how to play the flute, or paint, and so forth?
[27] Lit. 'whether it is good or not.'
Soc. Perhaps you might; for have you not persuaded me I am possessed of perfect knowledge of this art of husbandry,[28] albeit I know that no one ever taught this art to me?
[28] Or, 'since you actually succeeded in persuading me I was scientifically versed in,' etc. See Plat. 'Statesm.' 301 B; 'Theaet.' 208 E; Aristot. 'An. Post.' i. 6. 4; 'Categ.' 8. 41.
Isch. Ah! that is not the explanation, Socrates. The truth is what I told you long ago and kept on telling you. Husbandry is an art so gentle, so humane, that mistress-like she makes all those who look on her or listen to her voice intelligent[29] of herself at once. Many a lesson does she herself impart how best to try conclusions with her. [30] See, for instance, how the vine, making a ladder of the nearest tree whereon to climb, informs us that it needs support.[31] Anon it spreads its leaves when, as it seems to say, 'My grapes are young, my clusters tender,' and so teaches us, during that season, to screen and shade the parts exposed to the sun's rays; but when the appointed moment comes, when now it is time for the swelling clusters to be sweetened by the sun, behold, it drops a leaf and then a leaf, so teaching us to strip it bare itself and let the vintage ripen. With plenty teeming, see the fertile mother shows her mellow clusters, and the while is nursing a new brood in primal crudeness.[32] So the vine plant teaches us how best to gather in the vintage, even as men gather figs, the juiciest first.[33]
[29] Or, 'gives them at once a perfect knowledge of herself.'
[30] Lit. 'best to deal with her,' 'make use of her.'
[31] Lit. 'teaches us to prop it.'
[32] Lit. 'yet immature.'
[33] Or, 'first one and then another as it swells.' Cf. Shakespeare:
The mellow plum doth fall, the green sticks fast, Or being early pluck'd is sour to taste ('V. and A.' 527).
XX
At this point in the conversation I remarked: Tell me, Ischomachus, if the details of the art of husbandry are thus easy to learn, and all alike know what needs to be done, how does it happen that all farmers do not fare like, but some live in affluence owning more than they can possibly enjoy, while others of them fail to obtain the barest necessities and actually run into debt?
I will tell you, Socrates (Ischomachus replied). It is neither knowledge nor lack of knowledge in these husbandmen which causes some to be well off, while others are in difficulties; nor will you ever hear such tales afloat as that this or that estate has gone to ruin because the sower failed to sow evenly, or that the planter failed to plant straight rows of plants, or that such an one,[1] being ignorant what soil was best suited to bear vines, had set his plants in sterile ground, or that another[2] was in ignorance that fallow must be broken up for purposes of sowing, or that a third[3] was not aware that it is good to mix manure in with the soil. No, you are much more likely to hear said of So-and-so: No wonder the man gets in no wheat from his farm, when he takes no pains to have it sown or properly manured. Or of some other that he grows no wine: Of course not, when he takes no pains either to plant new vines or to make those he has bear fruit. A third has neither figs nor olives; and again the self-same reason: He too is careless, and takes no steps whatever to succeed in growing either one or other. These are the distinctions which make all the difference to prosperity in farming, far more than the reputed discovery of any clever agricultural method or machine.[4]
[1] 'Squire This.'
[2] 'Squire That.'
[3] 'Squire T'other.'
[4] There is something amiss with the text at this point. For emendations see Breit., Schenkl, Holden, Hartman.
You will find the principle applies elsewhere. There are points of strategic conduct in which generals differ from each other for the better or the worse, not because they differ in respect of wit or judgment, but of carefulness undoubtedly. I speak of things within the cognisance of every general, and indeed of almost every private soldier, which some commanders are careful to perform and others not. Who does not know, for instance, that in marching through a hostile territory an army ought to march in the order best adapted to deliver battle with effect should need arise?[5]--a golden rule which, punctually obeyed by some, is disobeyed by others. Again, as all the world knows, it is better to place day and night pickets[6] in front of an encampment. Yet even that is a procedure which, carefully observed at times, is at times as carelessly neglected. Once more: not one man in ten thousand,[7] I suppose, but knows that when a force is marching through a narrow defile, the safer method is to occupy beforehand certain points of vantage.[8] Yet this precaution also has been known to be neglected.
[5] See Thuc. ii. 81: 'The Hellenic troops maintained order on the march and kept a look-out until . . .'-- Jowett.
[6] See 'Cyrop.' I. vi. 43.
[7] Lit. 'it would be hard to find the man who did not know.'
[8] Or, 'to seize advantageous positions in advance.' Cf. 'Hiero,' x. 5.
Similarly, every one will tell you that manure is the best thing in the world for agriculture, and every one can see how naturally it is produced. Still, though the method of production is accurately known, though there is every facility to get it in abundance, the fact remains that, while one man takes pains to have manure collected, another is entirely neglectful. And yet God sends us rain from heaven, and every hollow place becomes a standing pool, while earth supplies materials of every kind; the sower, too, about to sow must cleanse the soil, and what he takes as refuse from it needs only to be thrown into water and time itself will do the rest, shaping all to gladden earth.[9] For matter in every shape, nay earth itself,[10] in stagnant water turns to fine manure.
[9] Lit. 'Time itself will make that wherein Earth rejoices.'
[10] i.e. 'each fallen leaf, each sprig or spray of undergrowth, the very weeds, each clod.' Lit. 'what kind of material, what kind of soil does not become manure when thrown into stagnant water?'
So, again, as touching the various ways in which the earth itself needs treatment, either as being too moist for sowing, or too salt[11] for planting, these and the processes of cure are known to all men: how in one case the superfluous water is drawn off by trenches, and in the other the salt corrected by being mixed with various non-salt bodies, moist or dry. Yet here again, in spite of knowledge, some are careful of these matters, others negligent.
[11] See Anatol. 'Geop.' ii. 10. 9; Theophr. 'de Caus.' ii. 5. 4, 16. 8, ap. Holden. Cf. Virg. 'Georg.' ii. 238:
salsa autem tellus, et quae perhibetur amara frugibus infelix.
But even if a man were altogether ignorant what earth can yield, were he debarred from seeing any fruit or plant, prevented hearing from the lips of any one the truth about this earth: even so, I put it to you, it would be easier far for any living soul to make experiments on a piece of land,[12] than on a horse, for instance, or on his
