Roman Farming. Early agriculture was a science whose techniques and lore were transmitted orally. The Romans were the first people to make agriculture a subject for technical discourse, systematically presented. "Cato first taught agriculture to speak Latin," said Columella, himself a writer on agriculture. First through its legions, then through its ploughs, the Romans transformed the face of western Europe. Early Roman agriculture consisted of small farms whereon a family could sustain itself with few goods purchased at the markets. As Rome expanded, many developments in agriculture transformed the small farm into large, cash-crop corporate enterprises that were rationally run. The Mediterranean soils of Italy were thin in topsoil. Ploughs were scratch devices pulled by animals. Never producing the abundant yields of modern farms, Roman farms were increasingly specialized according to the area, the nature of the soil and climate, and market...