Ancient Latin Writers on Agriculture, Vol. II: Columella

...stands in need of no teacher's instruction. But I, when I review either the vastness of the whole subject, as if it were a certain magnitude of a body, or the number of its parts, like individual limbs, fear that the final day may overtake me before I can know the entire discipline of the country. For he who wishes to profess himself perfect in this science must be most sagacious in the nature of things, and not ignorant of the world's declinations: so that he may have explored what is suitable for each region and what is repugnant to it; he must call back to memory the rising and setting of the stars, so that he does not begin work when rains and winds are imminent and render his labor fruitless. He should observe the habits of the sky and the current year. For they do not always bear the same demeanor, as if by prescription: nor does summer or winter come with the same countenance in all years: nor is spring always rainy, or autumn always humid—things which I would not believe anyone could know without a light of mind and the most exquisite disciplines. Even the variety of the earth itself, and the condition of each soil, requires only a few to discern what it denies us and what it promises. For who can truly contemplate all the parts in that discipline, so that they might perceive the use of crops and plowings, and know the various and most dissimilar types of lands? Some of these deceive by color, others by quality: and in some regions black earth, which they call "dusky," as in Campania, is laudable; in others, a rich red clay responds better; in some (such as in Africa and Numidia), rotten sands surpass even the most robust soil in fertility; in Asia and Mysia, dense...