Economics

The truth is that, whereas other artists conceal more or less the most important points in their own art, the farmer who plants best is most pleased when he is being watched, so is he who sows best. Question him about any piece of work well done: and he will tell you exactly how he did it.

So farming, Socrates, more than any other calling, seems to produce a generous disposition in its followers.

An excellent preamble, I cried, and not of a sort to damp the hearer’s curiosity. Come, describe it to me, all the more because it is so simple to learn. For it is no disgrace to you to teach elementary lessons, but far more a disgrace to me not to understand them, especially if they are really useful.

First then, Socrates, I want to show you that what is called the most complicated problem in agriculture by the authors who write most accurately on the theory of the subject, but are not practical farmers, is really a simple matter.

For they tell us that to be a successful farmer one must first know the nature of the soil.Yes, and they are right, I remarked; for if you don’t know what the soil is capable of growing, you can’t know, I suppose, what to plant or what to sow.

Well then, said Ischomachus, you can tell by looking at the crops and trees on another man’s land what the soil can and what it cannot grow. But when you have found out, it is useless to fight against the gods. For you are not likely to get a better yield from the land by sowing and planting what you want instead of the crops and trees that the land prefers.

If it happens that the land does not declare its own capabilities because the owners are lazy, you can often gather more correct information from a neighbouring plot than from a neighbouring proprietor.

Yes, and even if the land lies waste, it reveals its nature. For if the wild stuff growing on the land is of fine quality, then by good farming the soil is capable of yielding cultivated crops of fine quality. So the nature of the soil can be ascertained even by the novice who has no experience of farming.

Well, I think I am now confident, Ischomachus, that I need not avoid farming from fear of not knowing the nature of the soil.

The fact is, I am reminded that fishermen, though their business is in the sea, and they neither stop the boat to take a look nor slow down, nevertheless, when they see the crops as they scud past the farms, do not hesitate to express an opinion about the land, which is the good and which is the bad sort, now condemning, now praising it. And, what is more, I notice that in their opinion about the good land they generally agree exactly with experienced farmers.