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That the vineyard, when properly planted and brought to

perfection, was the most valuable part of the farm, seems to have

been an undoubted maxim in the ancient agriculture, as it is in

the modern, through all the wine countries. But whether it was

advantageous to plant a new vineyard, was a matter of dispute

among the ancient Italian husbandmen, as we learn from Columella.

He decides, like a true lover of all curious cultivation, in

favour of the vineyard; and endeavours to shew, by a comparison

of the profit and expense, that it was a most advantageous

improvement. Such comparisons, however, between the profit and

expense of new projects are commonly very fallacious; and in

nothing more so than in agriculture. Had the gain actually made

by such plantations been commonly as great as he imagined it

might have been, there could have been no dispute about it. The

same point is frequently at this day a matter of controversy in

the wine countries.