How to Be a Farmer: An Ancient Guide to Life on the Land

By Princeton University Press

A delightful anthology of classical Greek and Roman writings celebrating country living—ranging from a philosophy of compost to hymns to the gods of agriculture

Whether you farm or garden, live in the country or long to move there, or simply enjoy an occasional rural retreat, you will be delighted by this cornucopia of writings about living and working on the land, harvested from the fertile fields of ancient Greek and Roman literature. An inspiring antidote to the digital age, How to Be a Farmer evokes the beauty and bounty of nature with a rich mixture of philosophy, practical advice, history, and humor. Together, these timeless reflections on what the Greeks called boukolika and the Romans res rusticae provide an entertaining and enlightening guide to a more meaningful and sustainable way of life.

In fresh translations by classicist and farmer M. D. Usher, with the original texts on facing pages, Hesiod praises the dignity of labor; Plato describes the rustic simplicity of his ideal republic; Varro dedicates a farming manual to his wife, Fundania (“Mrs. Farmer”); and Vergil idealizes farmers as residents of the Golden Age. In other selections, Horace extols the joys of simple living at his cherished country farm; Pliny the Elder explains why all culture stems from agriculture; Columella praises donkeys and tells how to choose a ram or a dog; Musonius Rufus argues that farming is the best livelihood for a philosopher; and there is much more.

Proof that farming is ultimately a state of mind we should all cultivate, How to Be a Farmer will charm anyone who loves nature or its fruits.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Release date: Nov 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9780691224732

Book preview

HOW TO BE A FARMER

ANCIENT WISDOM FOR MODERN READERS

For a full list of titles in the series, go to https://press.princeton.edu/series/ancient-wisdom-for-modern-readers.

How to Be a Farmer: An Ancient Guide to Life on the Land by Many Hands

How to Innovate: An Ancient Guide to Creative Thinking by Aristotle

How to Tell a Joke: An Ancient Guide to the Art of Humor by Marcus Tullius Cicero

How to Keep an Open Mind: An Ancient Guide to Thinking Like a Skeptic by Sextus Empiricus

How to Be Content: An Ancient Poet’s Guide for an Age of Excess by Horace

How to Give: An Ancient Guide to Giving and Receiving by Seneca

How to Drink: A Classical Guide to the Art of Imbibing by Vincent Obsopoeus

How to Be a Bad Emperor: An Ancient Guide to Truly Terrible Leaders by Suetonius

How to Be a Leader: An Ancient Guide to Wise Leadership by Plutarch

How to Think about God: An Ancient Guide for Believers and Nonbelievers by Marcus Tullius Cicero

How to Keep Your Cool: An Ancient Guide to Anger Management by Seneca

How to Think about War: An Ancient Guide to Foreign Policy by Thucydides

How to Be Free: An Ancient Guide to the Stoic Life by Epictetus

How to Be a Friend: An Ancient Guide to True Friendship by Marcus Tullius Cicero

How to Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life by Seneca

HOW TO BE A FARMER

An Ancient Guide to Life on the Land

A Work of Many Hands

Selected, translated, and introduced by M. D. Usher

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

PRINCETON AND OXFORD

Copyright © 2021 by Princeton University Press

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Usher, M. D. (Mark David), 1966– compiler, translator.

Title: How to be a farmer : an ancient guide to life on the land / selected, translated, and introduced by M.D. Usher.

Description: Princeton : Princeton University Press, [2021] | Series: Ancient wisdom for modern readers | Includes bibliographical references and index.

eISBN 9780691224732 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Classical literature—Translations into English. | Farm life— Greece—Literary collections. | Farm life—Rome—Literary collections. | Country life—Greece—Literary collections. | Country life—Rome—Literary collections. | Agriculture, Ancient—Greece—Literary collections. | Agriculture, Ancient—Rome—Literary collections. | BISAC: PHILOSOPHY / History & Surveys / Ancient & Classical | SELF-HELP / Personal Growth / Happiness

Classification: LCC PA3621 .H58 2021 (print) | LCC PA3621 (ebook) | DDC 880—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021010078

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021010079

Version 1.0

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

Editorial: Rob Tempio and Matt Rohal

Production Editorial: Sara Lerner

Text and Jacket Design: Pamela L. Schnitter

Production: Erin Suydam

Publicity: Maria Whelan and Amy Stewart

Copyeditor: Jennifer Harris

Jacket Credit: Statue of Ceres / Deposit Photos

It is worth the expense of youthful days and costly hours, if you learn only some words of an ancient language.… It is not in vain that the farmer remembers and repeats the few Latin words which he has heard.

—HENRY DAVID THOREAU, Reading, from Walden (1856)

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTIONix

1. Keeping Up with the Joneses. Livelihood Is Hard to Come By1

2. The Benefits of Righteous Living9

3. On Work and Wealth15

4. Cultivating Good Neighbors. On Thrift21

5. Procrastination. Good and Bad Days27

6. A Bucolic Utopia31

7. The Philosophy of Compost55

8. Dedication to Mrs. Farmer. Invocation of Rustic Muses69

9. The Prestige and Antiquity of Rearing Livestock77

10. Praise for the Countryside85

11. Reverie of a Would-Be Farmer97

12. Simple Tastes105

13. Avoiding the Rat Race113

14. Culture from Agriculture125

15. The Ideal of Smallholding135

16. On Barley and Bread-Making145

17. Getting and Naming a Dog153

18. On Asses157

19. What to Look for in a Ram163

20. The Joint Venture Farm169

21. Why Farming Is the Best Job for a Philosopher183

22. A Garden on Lesbos197

23. The Numinous Landscape205

24. A Farmer’s Memorial225

NOTES229

PASSAGES TRANSLATED245

INTRODUCTION

People young and old have been leaving their desk jobs since at least the mid-nineteenth century in search of a better life in the country. It seems every generation has its reasons for returning to the land. A recent article in the Washington Post describes a growing movement of highly educated, ex-urban, first-time farmers who are capitalizing on booming consumer demand for local and sustainable foods and who, experts say, could have a broad impact on the food system.¹ This is a phenomenon that we have seen playing itself out here in Vermont as well, where my wife and I have been farming for over twenty years. The corresponding new interest in agricultural history and agrarian values among the professional class is fast becoming a rural Renaissance of sorts. While there are modern classics that cater to this interest already—for example, M. G. Kains’s Five Acres and Independence (1935), Scott and Helen Nearing’s Living the Good Life: How to Live Sanely and Simply in a Troubled World (1954), Wendell Berry’s The Unsettling of America (1977)—it is hoped that an anthology of ancient wisdom on country matters will broaden the horizon and help deliver us from our blinkered presentism.

And yet, the topic of country living could not be more contemporary, or more urgent. One need look no further than architect Rem Koolhaas’s extravaganza Countryside, the Future, an interactive installation on display at the Guggenheim Museum from February 2020 to February 2021. Koolhaas articulates the urgency of country living in the exhibition’s companion volume, Countryside, A Report, as follows: In 2020, two blatant tasks stand out. The inevitability of Total Urbanization must be questioned, and the countryside must be rediscovered as a place to resettle, to stay alive; enthusiastic human presence must reanimate it with new imagination.² How to Be a Farmer presents a small contribution to that new imaginary. As an anthology of excerpts, it possesses an exhibition quality of its own that embraces the necessarily developmental and collective nature of agronomic knowledge and endeavor. (Many hands, as the saying goes, make light work.) A unifying element is provided for in the choice of selections, which focus on Greek and Roman attitudes, dispositions, and reflections on what it means to live, work, and think in a landscape. This strikes me as far more interesting and useful to modern readers than practical advice on, for example, how to make a plow, when to hoe your beans, or what varieties of grape to plant in your vineyard. (Do you own a vineyard? I know I don’t.) That kind of information, which abounds in the ancient sources, while intrinsically fascinating and of historical importance, is dated, locale-specific, and often outmoded or inaccurate. Attitudes and values, however, as I hope these selections will show, are persistent, instructive, and still relevant today. Again, as Koolhaas summarizes his multidimensional vision for reanimating the countryside: amid new ways of paying, new ways of cultivating, new ways of building, new ways of remembering, new ways of exploring, new ways of acting, … new ways of owning, … new ways of protecting, new ways of planting, and so on, we must rediscover old ways of contemplating and being.³

In selecting the excerpts, I aimed for variety and accessibility. There is a mixture here of ethical precept, local color, historical observation, philosophical perspective, humor, satire, and poetry that evokes the beauty and bounty of Nature. I have included a few pieces that are not obviously or overtly agronomic (Plato, for example, and Lucretius). But even these, I think, will pleasantly surprise the reader by their intrinsic suitability and relevance to the overall theme. They certainly contribute to variety, which is, after all, the spice of life. Think of the result as a Poor Richard’s Almanack for a frenetic, digital age. One need not actually be a farmer to enjoy this book.

My own enthusiasm for the subject matter, however, does stem from hands-on experience with farming. My wife and I produce lamb, eggs, and maple syrup on 125 hardscrabble acres in Vermont and sell our products from the farm to private customers, at the local natural foods co-op, and wholesale to New York and Boston area markets. We also keep a few Scottish Highland cattle, tend large gardens, and dote on two lovely donkeys. In a separate book—Plato’s Pigs and Other Ruminations: Ancient Guides to Living with Nature (Cambridge, 2020)—I offer sundry thoughts about the joys, contradictions, and entanglements involved in any farming venture, and suggest more specifically than I can here in these pages how the ancient Greeks and Romans still inform the pursuit of sustainable, ecologically meaningful lifestyles today. As for the book in your hands: How to Be a Farmer? I say try it and find out for yourself. In your backyard, on your balcony, in an urban allotment, or on a thousand acres. Anyone can do it. All of us used to. Ultimately, I believe, farming is a state of mind, and it is well worth the trouble to cultivate that.

Note on the Sources and Translations

Some of the works translated here are poetic in form. Hesiod, the hymnists, Lucretius, Vergil, and Horace, for example, all wrote in meter. I have not attempted to render these works metrically in English, and to capture all the irony, double-entendres, and wordplay of these texts was simply not possible, though I have striven to communicate some of their poetic qualities. In any event, at every turn I have studiously avoided translationese, while still trying to convey accurately what a given author actually wrote and meant. I hope I have succeeded, and also captured something of each writer’s personality and charm.

Unlike in many parts of the world, agricultural field work in ancient Greece and Italy fell largely to men. Doubtless women also did their