BOOK XVIII. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF GRAIN.

CHAP. 1. (1.)—TASTE OF THE ANCIENTS FOR AGRICULTURE.

We now pass on to the Natural History of the various grains, of the garden plants and flowers, and indeed of all the other productions, with the exception of the trees and shrubs, which the Earth, in her bounteousness, affords us—a boundless field for contemplation, if even we regard the herbs alone, when we take into consideration the varieties of them, their numbers, the flowers they produce, their odours, their colours, their juices, and the numerous properties they possess—all of which have been engendered by her with a view to either the preservation or the gratification of the human race.

On entering, however, upon this branch of my subject, it is my wish in the first place to plead the cause of the Earth, and to act as the advocate of her who is the common parent of all, although in the earlier1 part of this work I have already had occasion to speak in her defence. For my subject matter, as I proceed in the fulfilment of my task, will now lead me to consider her in the light of being the producer of various noxious substances as well; in consequence of which it is that we are in the habit of charging her with our crimes, and imputing to her a guilt that is our own. She has produced poisons, it is true; but who is it but man that has found them out? For the birds of the air and the beasts of the field, it is sufficient to be on their guard against them, and to keep at a distance from them. The elephant, we find, and the urus, know how to sharpen2 and renovate their teeth against the trunks of trees, and the rhinoceros against rocks; wild boars, again, point their tusks like so many poniards by the aid of both rocks and trees; and all animals, in fact, are aware how to prepare themselves for the infliction of injury upon others; but still, which is there among them all, with the exception of man, that dips his weapons in poison? As for ourselves, we envenom the point of the arrow,3 and we contrive to add to the destructive powers of iron itself; by the aid of poisons we taint the waters of the stream, and we infect the various elements of Nature; indeed, the very air even, which is the main support of life, we turn into a medium for the destruction of life.

And it is not that we are to suppose that animals are ignorant of these means of defence, for we have already had occasion to point out4 the preparations which they make against the attacks of the serpent, and the methods they devise for effecting a cure when wounded by it; and yet, among them all, there is not one that fights by the aid of the poison that belongs to another, with the sole exception of man. Let us then candidly confess our guilt, we who are not contented even with the poisons as Nature has produced them; for by far the greater portion of them, in fact, are artificially prepared by the human hand!

And then besides, is it not the fact, that there are many men, the very existence of whom is a baneful poison, as it were? Like that of the serpent, they dart their livid tongue, and the venom of their disposition corrodes every object upon which it concentrates itself. Ever vilifying and maligning, like the ill-omened birds of the night, they disturb the repose of that darkness which is so peculiarly their own, and break in upon the quiet of the night even, by their moans and wailings, the only sounds they are ever heard to emit. Like animals of inauspicious presage, they only cross our path to prevent us from employing our energies or becoming useful to our fellow-men; and the only enjoyment that is sought by their abominable aspirations is centred in their universal hatred of mankind.

Still, however, even in this respect Nature has asserted her majestic sway; for how much more numerous5 are the good and estimable characters which she has produced! just in the same proportion that we find her giving birth to productions which are at once both salutary and nutritious to man. It is in our high esteem for men such as these, and the commendations they bestow, that we shall be content to leave the others, like so many brakes and brambles, to the devouring flames of their own bad passions, and to persist in promoting the welfare of the human race; and this, with all the more energy and perseverance, from the circumstance that it has been our object throughout, rather to produce a work of lasting utility than to ensure ourselves a widely-spread renown. We have only to speak, it is true, of the fields and of rustic operations; but still, it is upon these that the enjoyment of life so materially depends, and that the ancients conferred the very highest rank in their honours and commendations.

CHAP. 2. (2.)—WHEN THE FIRST WREATHS OF CORN WERE USED AT ROME.

Romulus was the first who established the Arval6 priesthood at Rome. This order consisted of the eleven sons of Acca Larentia, his nurse,7 together with Romulus himself, who assumed the appellation of the twelfth of the brotherhood. Upon this priesthood he bestowed, as being the most august distinction that he could confer upon it, a wreath of ears of corn, tied together with a white fillet; and this, in fact, was the first chaplet that was ever used at Rome. This dignity is only ended with life itself, and whether in exile or in captivity, it always attends its owner. In those early days, two jugera of land were considered enough for a citizen of Rome, and to none was a larger portion than this allotted. And yet, at the present day, men who but lately were the slaves of the Emperor Nero have been hardly content with pleasure-gardens that occupied the same space as this; while they must have fishponds, forsooth, of still greater extent, and in some instances I might add, perhaps, kitchens even as well.

Numa first established the custom of offering corn to the gods, and of propitiating them with the salted8 cake; he was the first, too, as we learn from Hemina, to parch spelt, from the fact that, when in this state, it is more wholesome as an aliment.9 This method, however, he could only establish one way: by making an enactment, to the effect that spelt is not in a pure state for offering, except when parched. He it was, too, who instituted the Fornacalia,10 festivals appropriated for the parching of corn, and others,11 observed with equal solemnity, for the erection and preservation of the “termini,” or boundaries of the fields: for these termini, in those days, they particularly regarded as gods; while to other divinities they gave the names of Seia,12 from “sero,” “to sow,” and of Segesta, from the “segetes,” or “crops of standing corn,” the statues of which goddesses we still see erected in the Circus. A third divinity it is forbidden by the rules of our religion to name even13 beneath a roof. In former days, too, they would not so much as taste the corn when newly cut, nor yet wine when just made, before the priests had made a libation of the first-fruits.

CHAP. 3. (3.)—THE JUGERUM OF LAND.

That portion of land used to be known as a “jugerum,” which was capable of being ploughed by a single “jugum,” or yoke of oxen, in one day; an “actus”14 being as much as the oxen could plough at a single spell, fairly estimated, without stopping. This last was one hundred and twenty feet in length; and two in length made a jugerum. The most considerable recompense that could be bestowed upon generals and valiant citizens, was the utmost extent of land around which a person could trace a furrow with the plough in a single day. The whole population, too, used to contribute a quarter15 of a sextarius of spelt, or else half a one, per head.

From agriculture the earliest surnames were derived. Thus, for instance, the name of Pilumnus was given to him who invented the “pilum,” or pestle of the bake-house, for pounding corn; that of Piso was derived from “piso,” to grind corn; and those of Fabius, Lentulus, and Cicero, from the several varieties16 of leguminous plants in the cultivation of which respectively these individuals excelled. One individual of the family of the Junii received the name of “Bubulcus,”17 from the skill he displayed in breeding oxen. Among the sacred ceremonials, too, there was nothing that was held more holy than the marriage by confarreation,18 and the woman just married used to present a cake made of spelt.19 Careless cultivation of the land was in those times an offence that came under the cognizance of the censors; and, as we learn from Cato,20 when it was said that such and such a man was a good agriculturist or a good husbandman, it was looked upon as the very highest compliment that could be paid him. A man came to be called “locuples,” or “rich,” from being “loci plenus,” or “full of earth.” Money, too, received its name of “pecunia,”21 from “pecus,” “cattle.” At the present day, even, in the registers of the censors, we find set down under the head of “pascua,” or “pasture lands,” everything from which the public revenues are derived, from the fact that for a long period of time pasture lands were the only sources of the public revenue. Fines, too, were only imposed in the shape of paying so many sheep or so many oxen; and the benevolent spirit of the ancient laws deserves remark, which most considerately enjoined that the magistrate, when he indicted a penalty, should never impose a fine of an ox before having first condemned the same party to the payment of a sheep.

Those who celebrated the public games in honour of the ox received the name of Bubetii.22 King Servius was the first who impressed upon our copper coin23 the figures of sheep and oxen. To depasture cattle secretly by night upon the unripe crops on plough lands, or to cut them in that state, was made by the Twelve Tables24 a capital offence in the case of an adult; and it was enacted that the person guilty of it should be hanged, in order to make due reparation to the goddess Ceres, a punishment more severe, even, than that inflicted for murder. If, on the other hand, the offender was not an adult, he was beaten at the discretion of the prætor; a penalty double the amount of the damage was also exacted.

The various ranks, too, and distinctions in the state had no other origin than the pursuits of agriculture. The rural tribes held the foremost rank, and were composed of those who possessed lands; while those of the city, a place to which it was looked upon as ignominious to be transferred, had the discredit thrown upon them of being an indolent race. Hence it was that these last were only four in number, and received their names from the several parts of the City which they respectively inhabited; being the Suburran, the Palatine, Colline, and Exquiline tribes. Every ninth day25 the rural tribes used to visit the city for the purpose of marketing, and it was for this reason that it was made illegal to hold the comitia upon the Nundinæ; the object being that the country people might not be called away thereby from the transaction of their business. In those days repose and sleep were enjoyed upon straw. Even to glory itself, in compliment to corn, the name was given of “adorea.”26

For my own part, I greatly admire27 the modes of expression employed in our ancient language: thus, for instance, we read in the Commentaries of the Priesthood to the following effect:—“For deriving an augury from the sacrifice of a bitch,28 a day should be set apart before the ear of corn appears from out of the sheath,29 and then again before it enters the sheath.”

CHAP. 4.—HOW OFTEN AND ON WHAT OCCASIONS CORN HAS SOLD AT A REMARKABLY LOW PRICE.

The consequence was, that when the Roman manners were such as these, the corn that Italy produced was sufficient for its wants, and it had to be indebted to no province for its food; and not only this, but the price of provisions was incredibly cheap. Manius Marcius, the ædile30 of the people, was the first who gave corn to the people at the price of one as for the modius. L. Minutius Augurinus,31 the same who detected, when eleventh tribune of the people, the projects of Spurius Mælius, reduced the price of corn on three market days,32 to one as per modius; for which reason a statue was erected in honour of him, by public subscription, without the Trigeminian Gate.33 T. Seius distributed corn to the people, in his ædileship,34 at one as per modius, in remembrance of which statues were erected in honour of him also in the Capitol and the Palatium: on the day of his funeral he was borne to the pile on the shoulders of the Roman people. In the year,35 too, in which the Mother of the Gods was brought to Rome, the harvest of that summer, it is said, was more abundant than it had been for ten years before. M. Varro informs us, that in the year36 in which L. Metellus exhibited so many elephants in his triumphal procession, a modius of spelt was sold for one as, which was the standard price also of a congius of wine, thirty pounds’ weight of dried figs, ten pounds of olive oil, and twelve pounds of flesh meat. Nor did this cheapness originate in the wide-spread domains of individuals encroaching continually upon their neighbours, for by a law proposed by Licinius Stolo, the landed property of each individual was limited to five hundred jugera; and he himself was convicted under his own law of being the owner of more than that amount, having as a disguise prevailed upon his son to lend him his name. Such were the prices of commodities at a time when the fortunes of the republic were rapidly on the increase. The words, too, that were uttered by Manius Curius37 after his triumphs and the addition of an immense extent of territory to the Roman sway, are well known: “The man must be looked upon,” said he, “as a dangerous citizen, for whom seven jugera of land are not enough;” such being the amount of land that had been allotted to the people after the expulsion of the kings.

What, then, was the cause of a fertility so remarkable as this? The fact, we have every reason to believe, that in those days the lands were tilled by the hands of generals even, the soil exulting beneath a plough-share crowned with wreaths of laurel, and guided by a husbandman graced with triumphs: whether it is that they tended the seed with the same care that they had displayed in the conduct of wars, and manifested the same diligent attention in the management of their fields that they had done in the arrangement of the camp, or whether it is that under the hands of honest men everything prospers all the better, from being attended to with a scrupulous exactness. The honours awarded to Serranus38 found him engaged in sowing his fields, a circumstance to which he owes his surname.39 Cincinnatus was ploughing his four jugera of land upon the Vaticanian Hill—the same that are still known as the “Quintian Meadows,”40 when the messenger brought him the dictatorship—finding him, the tradition says, stripped to the work, and his very face begrimed with dust. “Put on your clothes,” said he, “that I may deliver to you the mandates of the senate and people of Rome.” In those days these messengers bore the name of “viator,” or “wayfarer,” from the circumstance that their usual employment was to fetch the senators and generals from their fields.

But at the present day these same lands are tilled by slaves whose legs are in chains, by the hands of malefactors and men with a branded face! And yet the Earth is not deaf to our adjurations, when we address her by the name of “parent,” and say that she receives our homage41 in being tilled by hands such as these; as though, forsooth, we ought not to believe that she is reluctant and indignant at being tended in such a manner as this! Indeed, ought we to feel any surprise were the recompense she gives us when worked by chastised slaves,42 not the same that she used to bestow upon the labours of warriors?

CHAP. 5.—ILLUSTRIOUS MEN WHO HAVE WRITTEN UPON AGRICULTURE.

Hence it was that to give precepts upon agriculture became one of the principal occupations among men of the highest rank, and that in foreign nations even. For among those who have written on this subject we find the names of kings even, Hiero, for instance, Attalus Philometor, and Archelaüs, as well as of generals, Xenophon, for example, and Mago the Carthaginian. Indeed, to this last writer did the Roman senate award such high honours, that, after the capture of Carthage, when it bestowed the libraries of that city upon the petty kings of Africa, it gave orders, in his case only, that his thirty-two Books should be translated into the Latin language, and this, although M. Cato had already compiled his Book of Precepts; it took every care also to entrust the execution of this task to men who were well versed in the Carthaginian tongue, among whom was pre-eminent D. Silanus, a member of one of the most illustrious families of Rome. I have already indicated,43 at the commencement of this work, the numerous learned authors and writers in verse, together with other illustrious men, whose authority it is my intention to follow; but among the number I may here more particularly distinguish M. Varro, who, at the advanced age of eighty-eight years, thought it his duty to publish a treatise upon this subject.

(4.) Among the Romans the cultivation of the vine was introduced at a comparatively recent period, and at first, as indeed they were obliged to do, they paid their sole attention to the culture of the fields. The various methods of cultivating the land will now be our subject; and they shall be treated of by us in no ordinary or superficial manner, but in the same spirit in which we have hitherto written; enquiry shall be made with every care first into the usages of ancient days, and then into the discoveries of more recent times, our attention being devoted alike to the primary causes of these operations, and the reasons upon which they are respectively based. We shall make mention,44 too, of the various constellations, and of the several indications which, beyond all doubt, they afford to the earth; and the more so, from the fact that those writers who have hitherto treated of them with any degree of exactness, seem to have written their works for the use of any class of men but the agriculturist.

CHAP. 6.—POINTS TO BE OBSERVED IN BUYING LAND.

First of all, then, I shall proceed in a great measure according to the dicta of the oracles of agriculture; for there is no branch of practical life in which we find them more numerous or more unerring. And why should we not view in the light of oracles those precepts which have been tested by the infallibility of time and the truthfulness of experience?

(5.) To make a beginning, then, with Cato45—“The agricultural population,” says he, “produces the bravest men, the most valiant soldiers,46 and a class of citizens the least given of all to evil designs.—Do not be too eager in buying a farm.—In rural operations never be sparing of your trouble, and, above all, when you are purchasing land.—A bad bargain is always a ground for repentance.—Those who are about to purchase land, should always have an eye more particularly to the water there, the roads, and the neighbourhood.” Each of these points is susceptible of a very extended explanation, and replete with undoubted truths. Cato47 recommends, too, that an eye should be given to the people in the neighbourhood, to see how they look: “For where the land is good,” says he, “the people will look well-conditioned and healthy.”

Atilius Regulus, the same who was twice consul in the Punic War, used to say48 that a person should neither buy an unhealthy piece of land in the most fertile locality, nor yet the very healthiest spot if in a barren country. The salubrity of land, however, is not always to be judged of from the looks of the inhabitants, for those who are well-seasoned are able to withstand the effects of living in pestilent localities even. And then, besides, there are some localities that are healthy during certain periods of the year only; though, in reality, there is no soil that can be looked upon as really valuable that is not healthy all the year through. “That49 is sure to be bad land against which its owner has a continual struggle.” Cato recommends us before everything, to see that the land which we are about to purchase not only excels in the advantages of locality, as already stated, but is really good of itself. We should see, too, he says, that there is an abundance of manual labour in the neighbourhood, as well as a thriving town; that there are either rivers or roads, to facilitate the carriage of the produce; that the buildings upon the land are substantially erected, and that the land itself bears every mark of having been carefully tilled—a point upon which I find that many persons are greatly mistaken, as they are apt to imagine that the negligence of the previous owner is greatly to the purchaser’s advantage; while the fact is, that there is nothing more expensive than the cultivation of a neglected soil.

For this reason it is that Cato50 says that it is best to buy land of a careful proprietor, and that the methods adopted by others ought not to be hastily rejected—that it is the same with land as with mankind—however great the proceeds, if at the same time it is lavish and extravagant, there will be no great profits left. Cato looks upon a vineyard as the most51 profitable investment; and he is far from wrong in that opinion, seeing that he takes such particular care to retrench all superfluous expenses. In the second rank he places gardens that have a good supply of water, and with good reason, too, supposing always that they are near a town. The ancients gave to meadow lands the name of “parata,” or lands “always ready.”52

Cato being asked, on one occasion, what was the most certain source of profit, “Good pasture land,” was his answer; upon which, enquiry was made what was the next best. “Pretty good53 pasture lands,” said he—the amount of all which is, that he looked upon that as the most certain source of income which stands in need of the smallest outlay. This, however, will naturally vary in degree, according to the nature of the respective localities; and the same is the case with the maxim54 to which he gives utterance, that a good agriculturist must be fond of selling. The same, too, with his remark, that in his youth a landowner should begin to plant without delay, but that he ought not to build until the land is fully brought into cultivation, and then only a little at a time: and that the best plan is, as the common proverb has it, “To profit by the folly of others;”55 taking due care, however, that the keeping up of a farm-house does not entail too much expense. Still, however, those persons are guilty of no falsehood who are in the habit of saying that a proprietor who is well housed comes all the oftener to his fields, and that “the master’s forehead is of more use than his back.”56

CHAP. 7. (6.)—THE PROPER ARRANGEMENTS FOR A FARM-HOUSE.

The proper plan to be pursued is this:57 the farm-house must not be unsuitable for the farm, nor the farm for the house; and we must be on our guard against following the examples of L. Lucullus and Q. Scævola, who, though living in the same age, fell into the two opposite extremes; for whereas the farm-house of Scævola was not large enough for the produce of his farm, the farm of Lucullus was not sufficiently large for the house he built upon it; an error which gave occasion to the reproof of the censors, that on his farm there was less of ground for ploughing than of floor for sweeping. The proper arrangements for a farm-house are not to be made without a certain degree of skill. C. Marius, who was seven times consul, was the last person who had one built at Misenum;58 but he erected it with such a degree of that artistic skill which he had displayed in castrametation, that Sylla Felix59 even made the remark, that in comparison with Marius, all the others had been no better than blind.60

It is generally agreed, that a farm-house ought neither to be built near a marsh, nor with a river in front of it; for, as Homer61 has remarked, with the greatest correctness, unwholesome vapours are always exhaled from rivers before the rising of the sun. In hot localities, a farm-house should have a northern aspect, but where it is cold, it should look towards the south; where, on the other hand, the site is temperate, the house should look due east. Although, when speaking62 of the best kinds of soil, I may seem to have sufficiently discussed the characteristics by which it may be known, I shall take the present opportunity of adding a few more indications, employing the words of Cato63 more particularly for the purpose. “The dwarf-elder,” says he, “the wild plum,64 the bramble the small bulb,65 trefoil, meadow grass,66 the quercus, and the wild pear and wild apple, are all of them indicative of a corn land. The same is the case, too, where the land is black, or of an ashy colour. All chalky soils are scorching, unless they are very thin; the same, too, with sand, unless it is remarkably fine. These remarks, however, are more applicable to champaign localities than declivities.”

The ancients were of opinion, that before everything, moderation should be observed in the extent of a farm; for it was a favourite maxim of theirs, that we ought to sow the less, and plough the more: such too, I find, was the opinion entertained by Virgil,67 and indeed, if we must confess the truth, it is the wide-spread domains that have been the ruin68 of Italy, and soon will be that of the provinces as well. Six proprietors were in possession of one half of Africa,69 at the period when the Emperor Nero had them put to death. With that greatness of mind which was so peculiarly his own, and of which he ought not to lose the credit, Cneius Pompeius would never purchase the lands that belonged to a neighbour. Mago has stated it as his opinion, that a person, on buying a farm, ought at once to sell his town house;70 an opinion, however, which savours of too great rigidity, and is by no means conformable to the public good. It is with these words, indeed, that he begins his precepts; a good proof, at all events, that he looks upon the personal inspection of the owner as of primary importance.

The next point which requires our care is to employ a farm-steward71 of experience, and upon this, too, Cato72 has given many useful precepts. Still, however, it must suffice for me to say that the steward ought to be a man nearly as clever as his master, though without appearing to know it. It is the very worst plan of all, to have land tilled by slaves let loose from the houses of correction, as, indeed, is the case with all work entrusted to men who live without hope. I may possibly appear guilty of some degree of rashness in making mention of a maxim of the ancients, which will very probably be looked upon as quite incredible—“That nothing is so disadvantageous as to cultivate land in the highest style of perfection.” L. Tarius Rufus, a man who, born in the very lowest ranks of life, by his military talents finally attained the consulship,73 and who in other respects adhered to the old-fashioned notions of thriftiness, made away with about one hundred millions of sesterces, which, by the liberality of the late Emperor Augustus, he had contrived to amass, in buying up lands in Picenum, and cultivating them in the highest style, his object being to gain a name thereby; the consequence of which was, that his heir renounced74 the inheritance. Are we of opinion, then, that ruin and starvation must be the necessary consequence of such a course as this? Yes, by Hercules! and the very best plan of all is to let moderation guide our judgment in all things. To cultivate land well is absolutely necessary, but to cultivate it in the very highest style is mere extravagance, unless, indeed, the work is done by the hands of a man’s own family, his tenants, or those whom he is obliged to keep at any rate. But besides this, even when the owner tills the land itself, there are some crops which it is really not worth the while to gather, if we only take into account the manual labour expended upon them. The olive, too, should never be too highly75 cultivated, nor must certain soils, it is said, be too carefully tilled, those of Sicily,76 for instance; hence it is, that new comers there so often find themselves deceived.77

CHAP. 8.—MAXIMS OF THE ANCIENTS ON AGRICULTURE.

In what way, then, can land be most profitably cultivated? Why, in the words of our agricultural oracles, “by making good out of bad.” But here it is only right that we should say a word in justification of our forefathers, who in their precepts on this subject had nothing else in view but the benefit of mankind: for when they use the term “bad” here, they only mean to say that which costs the smallest amount of money. The principal object with them was in all cases to cut down expenses to the lowest possible sum; and it was in this spirit that they made the enactments which pronounced it criminal for a person who had enjoyed a triumph, to be in possession, among his other furniture, of ten pounds’ weight of silver plate: which permitted a man, upon the death of his farm-steward, to abandon all his victories, and return to the cultivation of his lands—such being the men the culture of whose farms the state used to take upon itself; and thus, while they led our armies, did the senate act as their steward.

It was in the same spirit, too, that those oracles of ours have given utterance to these other precepts, to the effect that he is a bad agriculturist who has to buy what his farm might have supplied him with; that the man is a bad manager who does in the day-time what he might have done in the night, except, indeed, when the state of the weather does not allow it; that he is a worse manager still, who does on a work-day what he might have done on a feast-day;78 but that he is the very worst of all, who works under cover in fine weather, instead of labouring in the fields.

I cannot refrain from taking the present opportunity of quoting one illustration afforded us by ancient times, from which it will be found that it was the usage in those days to bring before the people even questions connected with the various methods employed in agriculture, and will be seen in what way men were accustomed to speak out in their own defence. C. Furius Chresimus, a freedman, having found himself able, from a very small piece of land, to raise far more abundant harvests than his neighbours could from the largest farms, became the object of very considerable jealousy among them, and was accordingly accused of enticing away the crops of others by the practice of sorcery. Upon this, a day was named by Spurius Calvinus, the curule ædile, for his appearance. Apprehensive of being condemned, when the question came to be put to the vote among the tribes, he had all his implements of husbandry brought into the Forum, together with his farm servants, robust, well-conditioned, and well-clad people, Piso says. The iron tools were of first-rate quality, the mattocks were stout and strong, the plough-shares ponderous and substantial, and the oxen sleek and in prime condition. When all this had been done, “Here, Roman citizens,” said he, “are my implements of magic; but it is impossible for me to exhibit to your view, or to bring into this Forum, those midnight toils of mine, those early watchings, those sweats, and those fatigues.” Upon this, by the unanimous voice of the people, he was immediately acquitted. Agriculture, in fact, depends upon the expenditure of labour and exertion; and hence it is that the ancients were in the habit of saying, that it is the eye of the master that does more towards fertilizing a field than anything else.

We shall give the rest of these precepts in their appropriate places, according as we find them adapted to each variety of cultivation; but in the meantime we must not omit some of a general nature, which here recur to our recollection, and more particularly that maxim of Cato, as profitable as it is humane: “Always act in such a way as to secure the love of your neighbours.” He then proceeds to state his reasons for giving this advice, but it appears to me that no one surely can entertain the slightest doubt upon the subject. One of the very first recommendations that he gives is to take every care that the farm servants are kept in good condition.79 It is a maxim universally agreed upon in agriculture, that nothing must be done too late; and again, that everything must be done at its proper season; while there is a third precept, which reminds us that opportunities lost can never be regained. The malediction uttered by Cato against rotten ground has been treated of at some length already;80 but there is another precept which he is never tired of repeating, “Whatever can be done by the help of the ass, will cost the least money.”

Fern will be sure to die at the end of a couple of years, if you prevent it from putting forth leaves; the most efficient method of ensuring this is to beat the branches with a stick while they are in bud; for then the juices that drop from it will kill the roots.81 It is said, too, that fern will not spring up again if it is pulled up by the roots about the turn of the summer solstice, or if the stalks are cut with the edge of a reed, or if it is turned up with a plough-share with a reed placed82 upon it. In the same way, too, we are told that reeds may be effectually ploughed up, if care is taken to place a stalk of fern upon the share. A field infested with rushes should be turned up with the spade, or, if the locality is stony, with a two-pronged mattock: overgrown shrubs are best removed by fire. Where ground is too moist, it is an advantageous plan to cut trenches in it and so drain it; where the soil is cretaceous, these trenches should he left open; and where it is loose, they should be strengthened with a hedge to prevent them from falling in. When these drains are made on a declivity, they should have a layer of gutter tiles at the bottom, or else house tiles with the face upwards: in some cases, too, they should be covered83 with earth, and made to run into others of a larger size and wider; the bottom, also, should, if possible, have a coating of stones or of gravel. The openings, too, should be strengthened with two stones placed on either side, and another laid upon the top. Democritus has described a method of rooting up a forest, by first macerating the flower of the lupine84 for one day in the juice of hemlock, and then watering the roots of the trees with it.

CHAP. 9. (7.)—THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF GRAIN.

As the field is now prepared, we shall proceed to speak of the nature of the various kinds of grain; we must premise, however, that there are two principal classes of grain, the cereals,85 comprising wheat and barley, and the legumina, such as the bean and the chick-pea, for instance. The difference between these two classes is too well known to require any further description.

CHAP. 10.—THE HISTORY OF THE VARIOUS KINDS OF GRAIN.

The cereals are divided again into the same number of varieties, according to the time of the year at which they are sown. The winter grains are those which are put in the ground about the setting of the Vergiliæ,86 and there receive their nutriment throughout the winter, for instance, wheat,87 spelt,88 and barley.89 The summer grains are those which are sown in summer, before the rising of the Vergiliæ,90 such as millet,91 panic,92 sesame,93 horminum,94 and irio,95 in accordance, however, with the usage of Italy only; for in Greece and Asia all the grains are sown just after the setting of the Vergiliæ. There are some, again, that are sown at either season in Italy, and others at a third period, or, in other words, in the spring. Some authors give the name of spring-grain to millet, panic, lentils,96 chick-peas,97 and alica,98 while they call wheat, barley, beans, turnips, and rape, sementive or early sowing seeds. Certain species of wheat are only sown to make fodder for cattle, and are known by the name of “farrago,”99 or mixed grain; the same, too, with the leguminous plants, the vetch, for instance. The lupine,100 however, is grown in common as food for both cattle and men.

All the leguminous101 plants, with the exception of the bean, have a single root, hard and tough, like wood, and destitute of numerous ramifications; the chick-pea has the deepest root of all. Corn has numerous fibrous roots, but no ramifications. Barley makes its appearance102 above ground the seventh day after sowing; the leguminous plants on the fourth, or at the very latest, the seventh; the bean from the fifteenth day to the twentieth: though in Egypt the leguminous plants appear as early as the third day after they are sown. In barley, one extremity of the grain throws out the root, and the other the blade; this last flowers, too, before the other grain. In the cereals in general it is the thicker end of the seed that throws out the root, the thinner end the blossom; while in the other seeds both root and blossom issue from the same part.

During the winter, corn is in the blade; but in the spring winter corn throws out a tall stem. As for millet and panic, they grow with a jointed and grooved103 stalk, while sesame has a stem resembling that of fennel-giant. The fruit of all these seeds is either contained in an ear, as in wheat and barley, for instance, and protected from the attacks of birds and small animals by a prickly beard bristling like so many palisades; or else it is enclosed in pods, as in the leguminous plants, or in capsules, as in sesame and the poppy. Millet and panic can only be said to belong to the grower and the small birds in common, as they have nothing but a thin membrane to cover them, without the slightest protection. Panic receives that name from the panicule104 or down that is to be seen upon it; the head of it droops languidly, and the stalk tapers gradually in thickness, being of almost the toughness and consistency of wood: the head is loaded with grain closely packed, there being a tuft upon the top, nearly a foot in length. In millet the husks which embrace the grain bend downward with a wavy tuft upon the edge. There are several varieties of panic, the mammose, for instance, the ears of which are in clusters with small edgings of down, the head of the plant being double; it is distinguished also according to the colour, the white, for instance, the black, the red, and the purple even. Several kinds of bread are made from millet, but very little from panic: there is no grain known that weighs heavier than millet, and which swells more in baking. A modius of millet will yield sixty pounds’ weight of bread; and three sextarii steeped in water will make one modius of fermenty.105 A kind of millet106 has been introduced from India into Italy within the last ten years, of a swarthy colour, large grain, and a stalk like that of the reed. This stalk springs up to the height of seven feet, and has tufts of a remarkable size, known by the name of “phobæ.”107 This is the most prolific of all the cereals, for from a single grain no less than three sextarii108 are produced: it requires, however, to be sown in a humid soil.

Some kinds of corn begin to form the ear at the third joint, and others at the fourth, though at its first formation the ear remains still concealed. Wheat, however, has four109 articulations, spelt110 six, and barley eight. In the case of these last, the ear does not begin to form before the number of joints, as above mentioned, is complete. Within four or five days, at the very latest, after the ear has given signs of forming, the plant begins to flower, and in the course of as many days or a little more, sheds its blossom: barley blossoms at the end of seven days at the very latest. Varro says that the grains are perfectly formed at the end of four times111 nine days from their flowering, and are ready for cutting at the ninth month.

The bean, again, first appears in leaf, and then throws out a stalk, which has no articulations112 upon it. The other leguminous plants have a tough, ligneous stalk, and some of them throw out branches, the chick-pea, the fitch, and the lentil, for instance. In some of the leguminous plants, the pea, for example, the stem creeps along the ground, if care is not taken to support it by sticks: if this precaution is omitted, the quality is deteriorated. The bean and the lupine are the only ones among the leguminous plants that have a single stem: in all the others the stem throws out branches, being of a ligneous nature, very thin, and in all cases hollow. Some of these plants throw out the leaves from the root, others at the top.113 Wheat, barley, and the vetch, all the plants, in fact, which produce straw, have a single leaf only at the summit: in barley, however, this leaf is rough, while in the others it is smooth. * * * In the bean, again, the chick-pea, and the pea, the leaves are numerous and divided. In corn the leaf is similar to that of the reed, while in the bean it is round, as also in a great proportion of the leguminous plants. In the ervilia114 and the pea the leaf is long,115 in the kidney-bean veined, and in sesame116 and irio the colour of blood. The lupine and the poppy are the only ones among these plants that lose117 their leaves.

The leguminous plants remain a longer time in flower, the fitch and the chick-pea more particularly; but the bean is in blossom the longest of them all, for the flower remains on it forty days; not, indeed, that each stalk retains its blossom for all that length of time, but, as the flower goes off in one, it comes on in another. In the bean, too, the crop is not ripe all at once, as is the case with corn; for the pods make their appearance at different times, at the lowest parts first, the blossom mounting upwards by degrees.

When the blossom is off in corn, the stalk gradually thickens, and it ripens within forty days at the most. The same is the case, too, with the bean, but the chick-pea takes a much shorter time to ripen; indeed, it is fit for gathering within forty days from the time that it is sown. Millet, panic, sesame, and all the summer grains are ripe within forty days after blossoming, with considerable variations, of course, in reference to soil and weather. Thus, in Egypt, we find barley cut at the end of six months, and wheat at the end of seven, from the time of sowing. In Hellas, again, barley is cut in the seventh month, and in Peloponnesus in the eighth; the wheat being got in at a still later period.

Those grains which grow on a stalk of straw are enclosed in an envelope protected by a prickly beard; while in the bean and the leguminous plants in general they are enclosed in pods upon branches which shoot alternately from either side. The cereals are the best able to withstand the winter, but the leguminous plants afford the most substantial food. In wheat, the grain has several coats, but in barley,118 more particularly, it is naked and exposed; the same, too, with arinca,119 but most of all, the oat. The stem is taller in wheat than it is in barley, but the ear is more bearded120 in the last. Wheat, barley, and winter-wheat121 are threshed out; they are cleaned, too, for sowing just as they are prepared for the mill, there being no necessity for parching122 them. Spelt, on the other hand, millet, and panic, cannot be cleaned without parching them; hence it is that they are always sown raw and with the chaff on. Spelt is preserved in the husk, too, for sowing, and, of course, is not in such case parched by the action of fire.

CHAP. 11.—SPELT.

Of all these grains barley is the lightest,123 its weight rarely exceeding fifteen pounds to the modius, while that of the bean is twenty-two. Spelt is much heavier than barley, and wheat heavier than spelt. In Egypt they make a meal124 of olyra,125 a third variety of corn that grows there. The Gauls have also a kind of spelt peculiar to that country: they give it the name of “brace,”126 while to us it is known as “sandala:” it has a grain of remarkable whiteness. Another difference, again, is the fact that it yields nearly four pounds more of bread to the modius than any other kind of spelt. Verrius states that for three hundred years the Romans made use of no other meal than that of corn.

CHAP. 12.—WHEAT.

There are numerous kinds of wheat which have received their names from the countries where they were first produced. For my part, however, I can compare no kind of wheat to that of Italy either for whiteness or weight, qualities for which it is more particularly distinguished: indeed it is only with the produce of the more mountainous parts of Italy that the foreign wheats can be put in comparison. Among these the wheat of Bœotia127 occupies the first rank, that of Sicily the second, and that of Africa the third. The wheats of Thrace, Syria, and, more recently, of Egypt, used to hold the third rank for weight, these facts having been ascertained through the medium of the athletes; whose powers of consumption, equal to those of beasts of burden, have established the gradations in weight, as already stated. Greece, too, held the Pontic128 wheat in high esteem; but this has not reached Italy as yet. Of all the varieties of grain, however, the Greeks gave the preference to the kinds called dracontion, strangia, and Selinusium, the chief characteristic of which is a stem of remarkable thickness: it was this, in the opinion of the Greeks, that marked them as the peculiar growth of a rich soil. On the other hand, they recommended for sowing in humid soils an extremely light and diminutive species of grain, with a remarkably thin stalk, known to them as speudias, and standing in need of an abundance of nutriment. Such, at all events, were the opinions generally entertained in the reign of Alexander the Great, at a time when Greece was at the height of her glory, and the most powerful country in the world. Still, however, nearly one hundred and forty-four years before the death of that prince we find the poet Sophocles, in his Tragedy of “Triptolemus,” praising the corn of Italy before all others. The passage, translated word for word, is to the following effect:—

“And favour’d Italy grows white with hoary wheat.”

And it is this whiteness that is still one of the peculiar merits of the Italian wheat; a circumstance which makes me the more surprised to find that none of the Greek writers of a later period have made any reference to it.

Of the various kinds of wheat which are imported at the present day into Rome, the lightest in weight are those which come from Gaul and Chersonnesus; for, upon weighing them, it will be found that they do not yield more than twenty pounds to the modius. The grain of Sardinia weighs half a pound more, and that of Alexandria one-third of a pound more than that of Sardinia; the Sicilian wheat is the same in weight as the Alexandrian. The Bœotian wheat, again, weighs a whole pound more than these last, and that of Africa a pound and three quarters. In Italy beyond the Padus, the spelt, to my knowledge, weighs twenty-five pounds to the modius, and, in the vicinity of Clusium, six-and-twenty. We find it a rule, universally established by Nature, that in every kind of commissariat bread129 that is made, the bread exceeds the weight of the grain by one-third; and in the same way it is generally considered that that is the best kind of wheat, which, in kneading, will absorb one congius of water.130 There are some kinds of wheat which give, when used by themselves, an additional weight equal to this: the Balearic wheat, for instance, which to a modius of grain yields thirty-five pounds weight of bread. Others, again, will only give this additional weight by being mixed with other kinds, the Cyprian wheat and the Alexandrian, for example; which, if used by themselves, will yield no more than twenty pounds to the modius. The wheat of Cyprus is swarthy, and produces a dark bread; for which reason it is generally mixed with the white wheat of Alexandria; the mixture yielding twenty-five pounds of bread to the modius of grain. The wheat of Thebais, in Egypt, when made into bread, yields twenty-six pounds to the modius. To knead the meal with sea-water, as is mostly done in the maritime districts, for the purpose of saving the salt, is extremely pernicious; there is nothing, in fact, that will more readily predispose the human body to disease. In Gaul and Spain, where they make a drink131 by steeping corn in the way that has been already described—they employ the foam132 which thickens upon the surface as a leaven: hence it is that the bread in those countries is lighter than that made elsewhere.

There are some differences, also, in the stem of wheat; for the better the kind the thicker it is. In Thrace, the stem of the wheat is covered with several coats,133 which are rendered absolutely necessary by the excessive cold of those regions. It is the cold, also, that led to the discovery there of the three-month134 wheat, the ground being covered with snow most of the year. At the end mostly of three months after it has been sown, this wheat is ready for cutting, both in Thrace and in other parts of the world as well. This variety is well known, too, throughout all the Alpine range, and in the northern provinces there is no kind of wheat that is more prolific; it has a single stem only, is by no means of large size in any part of it, and is never sown but in a thin, light soil. There is a two-month135 wheat also found in the vicinity of Ænos, in Thrace, which ripens the fortieth day after sowing; and yet it is a surprising fact, that there is no kind of wheat that weighs heavier than this, while at the same time it produces no bran. Both Sicily and Achaia grow it, in the mountainous districts of those countries; as also Eubœa, in the vicinity of Carystus. So greatly, then, is Columella in error,136 in supposing that there is no distinct variety of three-month wheat even; the fact being that these varieties have been known from the very earliest times. The Greeks give to these wheats the name of “setanion.” It is said that in Bactria the grains of wheat are of such an enormous size, that a single one is as large as our ears of corn.137

CHAP. 13.—BARLEY: RICE.

Of all the cereals the first that is sown is barley. We shall state the appropriate time for sowing each kind when we come to treat of the nature of each individually. In India, there is both a cultivated and a wild138 barley, from which they make excellent bread, as well as alica.139 But the most favourite food of all there is rice,140 from which they prepare a ptisan141 similar to that made from barley in other parts of the world. The leaves of rice are fleshy,142 very like those of the leek, but broader; the stem is a cubit in height, the blossom purple, and the root globular, like a pearl in shape.143

CHAP. 14.—POLENTA.

Barley is one of the most ancient aliments of man, a fact that is proved by a custom of the Athenians, mentioned by Menander,144 as also by the name of “hordearii,”145 that used to be given to gladiators. The Greeks, too, prefer barley to anything else for making polenta.146 This food is made in various ways: in Greece, the barley is first steeped in water, and then left a night to dry. The next day they parch it, and then grind it in the mill. Some persons parch it more highly, and then sprinkle it again with a little water; after which they dry it for grinding. Others shake the grain from out of the ear while green, and, after cleaning and soaking it in water, pound it in a mortar. They then wash the paste in baskets, and leave it to dry in the sun; after which they pound it again, clean it, and grind it in the mill. But whatever the mode of preparation adopted, the proportions are always twenty pounds of barley to three pounds of linseed,147 half a pound of coriander, and fifteen drachmæ148 of salt: the ingredients are first parched, and then ground in the mill.

Those who want it for keeping, store it in new earthen vessels, with fine flour and bran. In Italy, the barley is parched without being steeped in water, and then ground to a fine meal, with the addition of the ingredients already mentioned, and some millet as well. Barley bread, which was extensively used by the ancients, has now fallen into universal disrepute, and is mostly used as a food for cattle only.

CHAP. 15.—PTISAN.

With barley, too, the food called ptisan149 is made, a most substantial and salutary aliment, and one that is held in very high esteem. Hippocrates, one of the most famous writers on medical science, has devoted a whole volume to the praises of this aliment. The ptisan of the highest quality is that which is made at Utica; that of Egypt is prepared from a kind of barley, the grain of which grows with two points.150 In Bætica and Africa, the kind of barley from which this food is made is that which Turranius calls the “smooth”151 barley: the same author expresses an opinion, too, that olyra152 and rice are the same. The method of preparing ptisan is universally known.

CHAP. 16.—TRAGUM.

In a similar manner, too, tragum is prepared from seed153 wheat, but only in Campania and Egypt.

CHAP. 17.—AMYLUM.

Amylum is prepared from every kind of wheat, and from winter-wheat154 as well; but the best of all is that made from three-month wheat. The invention of it we owe to the island of Chios, and still, at the present day, the most esteemed kind comes from there; it derives its name from its being made without the help of the mill.155 Next to the amylum made with three-month wheat, is that which is prepared from the lighter kinds of wheat. In making it, the grain is soaked in fresh water, placed in wooden vessels; care being taken to keep it covered with the liquid, which is changed no less than five times in the course of the day. If it can be changed at night as well, it is all the better for it, the object being to let it imbibe the water gradually and equally. When it is quite soft, but before it turns sour, it is passed through linen cloth, or else wicker-work, after which it is poured out upon a tile covered with leaven, and left to harden in the sun. Next to the amylum of Chios, that of Crete is the most esteemed, and next to that the Ægyptian. The tests of its goodness are its being light and smooth: it should be used, too, while it is fresh. Cato,156 among our writers, has made mention of it.

CHAP. 18.—THE NATURE OF BARLEY.

Barley-meal, too, is employed for medicinal purposes; and it is a curious fact, that for beasts of burden they make a paste of it, which is first hardened by the action of fire, and then ground. It is then made up into balls, which are introduced with the hand into the paunch, the result of which is, that the vigour and muscular strength of the animal is considerably increased. In some kinds of barley, the ears have two rows of grains,157 and in others more; in some cases, as many as six.158 The grain itself, too, presents certain differences, being long and thin, or else short or round, white, black,159 or, in some instances, of a purple colour. This last kind is employed for making polenta: the white is ill adapted for standing the severity of the weather. Barley is the softest of all the grains: it can only be sown in a dry, loose soil,160 but fertile withal. The chaff of barley ranks among the very best; indeed, for litter there is none that can be compared with it. Of all grain, barley is the least exposed to accidents, as it is gathered before the time that mildew begins to attack wheat; for which reason it is that the provident agriculturist sows only as much wheat as may be required for food. The saying is, that “barley is sown in a money-bag,” because it so soon returns a profit. The most prolific kind of all is that which is got in at Carthage,161 in Spain, in the month of April. It is in the same month that it is sown in Celtiberia, and yet it yields two harvests in the same year. All kinds of barley are cut sooner than other grain, and immediately after they are ripe; for the straw is extremely brittle, and the grain is enclosed in a husk of remarkable thinness. It is said, too, that a better polenta162 is made from it, if it is gathered before it is perfectly ripe.

CHAP. 19. (8.)—ARINCA, AND OTHER KINDS OF GRAIN THAT ARE GROWN IN THE EAST.

The several kinds of corn are not everywhere the same; and even where they are the same, they do not always bear a similar name. The kinds most universally grown are spelt, by the ancients known as “adorea,” winter wheat,163 and wheat;164 all these being common to many countries. Arinca was originally peculiar to Gaul, though now it is widely diffused over Italy as well. Egypt, too, Syria, Cilicia, Asia, and Greece, have their own peculiar kinds, known by the names of zea,165 olyra, and tiphe.166 In Egypt, they make a fine flour from wheat of their own growth, but it is by no means equal to that of Italy. Those countries which employ zea, have no spelt. Zea, however, is to be found in Italy, and in Campania more particularly, where it is known by the name of “seed.”167 The grain that bears this name enjoys a very considerable celebrity, as we shall have occasion to state168 on another occasion; and it is in honour of this that Homer169 uses the expression, ζείδωρος ἄρουρα, and not, as some suppose, from the fact of the earth giving life.170 Amylum is made, too, from this grain, but of a coarser171 quality than the kind already mentioned;172 this, however, is the only difference that is perceptible.

The most hardy kind, however, of all the grains is spelt, and the best to stand the severity of the weather; it will grow in the very coldest places, as also in localities that are but half tilled, or soils that are extremely hot, and destitute of water. This was the earliest food of the ancient inhabitants of Latium; a strong proof of which is the distributions of adorea that were made in those times, as already stated.173 It is evident, too, that the Romans subsisted for a long time upon pottage,174 and not bread; for we find that from its name of “puls,” certain kinds of food are known, even at the present day, as “pulmentaria.”175 Ennius, too, the most ancient of our poets, in describing the famine in a siege, relates how that the parents snatched away the messes of pottage176 from their weeping children. At the present day, even, the sacrifices in conformity with the ancient rites, as well as those offered upon birthdays, are made with parched pottage.177 This food appears to have been as much unknown in those days in Greece as polenta was in Italy.

CHAP. 20.—WINTER WHEAT. SIMILAGO, OR FINE FLOUR.

There is no grain that displays a greater avidity than wheat, and none that absorbs a greater quantity of nutriment. With all propriety I may justly call winter wheat178 the very choicest of all the varieties of wheat. It is white, destitute of all flavour,179 and not oppressive180 to the stomach. It suits moist localities particularly well, such as we find in Italy and Gallia Comata; but beyond the Alps it is found to maintain its character only in the territory of the Allobroges and that of the Memini; for in the other parts of those countries it degenerates at the end of two years into common wheat.181 The only method of preventing this is to take care and sow the heaviest grains only.

(9.) Winter wheat furnishes bread of the very finest quality and the most esteemed delicacies of the bakers. The best bread that is known in Italy is made from a mixture of Campanian winter wheat with that of Pisæ. The Campanian kind is of a redder colour, while the latter is white; when mixed with chalk,182 it is increased in weight. The proper proportion for the yield of Campanian wheat to the modius of grain is four sextarii of what is known as bolted flour;183 but when it is used in the rough and has not been bolted, then the yield should be five sextarii of flour. In addition to this, in either case there should be half a modius of white meal, with four sextarii of coarse meal, known as “seconds,” and the same quantity of bran.184 The Pisan wheat produces five sextarii of fine flour to the modius; in other respects it yields the same as that of Campania. The wheat of Clusium and Arretium gives another sextarius of fine flour, but the yield is similar to that of the kinds already mentioned in all other respects. If, however, as much of it as possible is converted into fine wheat meal, the modius will yield sixteen pounds weight of white bread, and three of seconds, with half a modius of bran. These differences, however, depend very materially upon the grinding; for when the grain is ground quite dry it produces more meal, but when sprinkled with salt water185 a whiter flour, though at the same time a greater quantity of bran. It is very evident that “farina,” the name we give to meal, is derived from “far.” A modius of meal made from Gallic winter wheat, yields twenty-two pounds of bread; while that of Italy, if made into bread baked in tins,186 will yield two or three pounds more. When the bread is baked in the oven,187 two pounds must be added in weight in either case.

(10.) Wheat yields a fine flour188 of the very highest quality. In African wheat the modius ought to yield half a modius of fine flour and five sextarii of pollen, that being the name given to fine wheat meal, in the same way that that of winter wheat is generally known as “flos,” or the “flower.” This fine meal is extensively used in copper works and paper manufactories. In addition to the above, the modius should yield four sextarii of coarse meal, and the same quantity of bran. The finest wheaten flour will yield one hundred189 and twenty-two pounds of bread, and the fine meal of winter wheat one hundred189 and seventeen, to the modius of grain. When the prices of grain are moderate, meal sells at forty asses the modius, bolted wheaten flour at eight asses more, and bolted flour of winter wheat, at sixteen asses more. There is another distinction again in fine wheaten flour, which originated formerly in the days of L. Paulus. There were three classes of wheat; the first of which would appear to have yielded seventeen pounds of bread, the second eighteen, and the third nineteen pounds and a third: to these were added two pounds and a half of seconds,190 and the same quantity of brown190 bread, with six sextarii of bran.191

Winter wheat never ripens all at once, and yet there is none of the cereals that can so ill brook any delay; it being of so delicate a nature, that the ears directly they are ripe will begin to shed their grain. So long, however, as it is in stalk, it is exposed to fewer risks than other kinds of wheat, from the fact of its always having the ear upright, and not retaining the dew, which is a prolific cause of mildew.

From arinca192 a bread of remarkable sweetness is made. The grains in this variety lie closer than they do in spelt; the ear, too, is larger and more weighty. It is rarely the case that a modius of this grain does not weigh full sixteen pounds. In Greece they find great difficulty in threshing it; and hence it is that we find Homer193 saying that it is given to beasts of burden, this being the same as the grain that he calls “olyra.” In Egypt it is threshed without any difficulty, and is remarkably prolific. Spelt has no beard, and the same is the case with winter wheat, except194 that known as the Laconian variety. To the kinds already mentioned we have to add bromos,195 the winter wheat just excepted, and tragos,196 all of them exotics introduced from the East, and very similar to rice. Tiphe197 also belongs to the same class, from which in our part of the world a cleaned grain resembling rice is prepared. Among the Greeks, too, there is the grain known as zea; and it is said that this, as well as tiphe, when cleaned from the husk and sown, will degenerate198 and assume the form of wheat; not immediately, but in the course of three years.

CHAP. 21.—THE FRUITFULNESS OF AFRICA IN WHEAT.

There is no grain more prolific than wheat, Nature having bestowed upon it this quality, as being the substance which she destined for the principal nutriment of man. A modius of wheat, if the soil is favourable, as at Byzacium,199 a champaign district of Africa, will yield as much as one hundred and fifty200 modii of grain. The procurator of the late Emperor Augustus sent him from that place—a fact almost beyond belief—little short of four hundred shoots all springing from a single grain; and we have still in existence his letters on the subject. In a similar manner, too, the procurator of Nero sent him three hundred and sixty stalks all issuing from a single grain.201 The plains of Leontium in Sicily, and other places in that island, as well as the whole of Bætica, and Egypt more particularly, yield produce a hundred-fold. The most prolific kinds of wheat are the ramose wheat,202 and that known as the “hundred-grain”203 wheat. Before now, as many as one hundred beans, too, have been found on a single stalk.

CHAP. 22.—SESAME. ERYSIMUM, OR IRIO. HORMINUM.

We have spoken204 of sesame, millet, and panic as belonging to the summer grains. Sesame205 comes from India, where they extract an oil from it; the colour of its grain is white. Similar in appearance to this is the erysimum of Asia and Greece, and indeed it would be identical with it were it not that the grain is better filled.206 It is the same grain that is known among us as “irio;” and strictly speaking, ought rather to be classed among the medicaments than the cereals. Of the same nature, too, is the plant called “horminum”207 by the Greeks, though resembling cummin208 in appearance; it is sown at the same time as sesame: no animal will eat either this or irio while green.

CHAP. 23.—THE MODE OF GRINDING CORN.

All the grains are not easily broken. In Etruria they first parch the spelt in the ear, and then pound it with a pestle shod with iron at the end. In this instrument the iron is notched209 at the bottom, sharp ridges running out like the edge of a knife, and concentrating in the form of a star; so that if care is not taken to hold the pestle perpendicularly while pounding, the grains will only be splintered and the iron teeth broken. Throughout the greater part of Italy, however, they employ a pestle that is only rough210 at the end, and wheels turned by water, by means of which the corn is gradually ground. I shall here set forth the opinions given by Mago as to the best method of pounding corn. He says that the wheat should be steeped first of all in water, and then cleaned from the husk; after which it should be dried in the sun, and then pounded with the pestle; the same plan, he says, should be adopted in the preparation of barley. In the latter case, however, twenty sextarii of grain require only two sextarii of water. When lentils are used, they should be first parched, and then lightly pounded with the bran; or else, adopting another method, a piece of unbaked brick and half a modius of sand211 should be added to every twenty sextarii of lentils.

Ervilia should be treated in the same way as lentils. Sesame should be first steeped in warm water, and then laid out to dry, after which it should be rubbed out briskly, and then thrown into cold water, so that the chaff may be disengaged by floating to the surface. After this is done, the grain should again be spread out in the sun, upon linen cloths, to dry. Care, however, should be taken to lose no time in doing this, as it is apt to turn musty, and assume a dull, livid colour. The grains, too, which are just cleaned from the husk, require various methods of pounding. When the beard is ground by itself, without the grain, the result is known as “acus,”212 but it is only used by goldsmiths.213 If, on the other hand, it is beaten out on the threshing-floor, together with the straw, the chaff has the name of “palea,” * * * * and in most parts of the world is employed as fodder for beasts of burden. The residue of millet, panic, and sesame, is known to us as “apluda;” but in other countries it is called by various other names.

CHAP. 24.—MILLET.

Campania is particularly prolific in millet, and a fine white porridge is made from it: it makes a bread, too, of remarkable sweetness. The nations of Sarmatia214 live principally on this porridge, and even the raw meal, with the sole addition of mares’ milk, or else blood215 extracted from the thigh of the horse. The Æthiopians know of no other grain but millet and barley.

CHAP. 25.—PANIC.

The people of Gaul, and of Aquitania216 more particularly, make use of panic; the same is the case, too, in Italy beyond the Padus, with the addition, however, of the bean, without which they prepare none of their food. There is no aliment held in higher esteem than panic by the nations of Pontus. The other summer grains thrive better in well-watered soils than in rainy localities; but water is by no means beneficial to millet or panic when they are coming into blade. It is recommended not to sow them among vines or fruit-trees, as it is generally thought that these crops impoverish the soil.

CHAP. 26. (11)—THE VARIOUS KINDS OF LEAVEN.

Millet is more particularly employed for making leaven; and if kneaded with must,217 it will keep a whole year. The same is done, too, with the fine wheat-bran of the best quality; it is kneaded with white must three days old, and then dried in the sun, after which it is made into small cakes. When required for making bread, these cakes are first soaked in water, and then boiled with the finest spelt flour, after which the whole is mixed up with the meal; and it is generally thought that this is the best method of making bread. The Greeks have established a rule that for a modius of meal eight ounces of leaven is enough.

These kinds of leaven, however, can only be made at the time of vintage, but there is another leaven which may be prepared with barley and water, at any time it may happen to be required. It is first made up into cakes of two pounds in weight, and these are then baked upon a hot hearth, or else in an earthen dish upon hot ashes and charcoal, being left till they turn of a reddish brown. When this is done, the cakes are shut close in vessels, until they turn quite sour: when wanted for leaven, they are steeped in water first. When barley bread used to be made, it was leavened with the meal of the fitch,218 or else the chicheling vetch,219 the proportion being, two pounds of leaven to two modii and a half of barley meal. At the present day, however, the leaven is prepared from the meal that is used for making the bread. For this purpose, some of the meal is kneaded before adding the salt, and is then boiled to the consistency of porridge, and left till it begins to turn sour. In most cases, however, they do not warm it at all, but only make use of a little of the dough that has been kept from the day before. It is very evident that the principle which causes the dough to rise is of an acid nature, and it is equally evident that those persons who are dieted upon fermented bread are stronger220 in body. Among the ancients, too, it was generally thought that the heavier wheat is, the more wholesome it is.

CHAP. 27.—THE METHOD OF MAKING BREAD: ORIGIN OF THE ART.

It seems to me quite unnecessary to enter into an account of the various kinds of bread that are made. Some kinds, we find, receive their names from the dishes with which they are eaten, the oyster-bread,221 for instance: others, again, from their peculiar delicacy, the artolaganus,222 or cake-bread, for example; and others from the expedition with which they are prepared, such as the “speusticus,”223 or “hurry-bread.” Other varieties receive their names from the peculiar method of baking them, such as oven-bread,224 tin-bread,225 and mould-bread.226 It is not so very long since that we had a bread introduced from Parthia, known as water-bread,227 from a method in kneading it, of drawing out the dough by the aid of water, a process which renders it remarkably light, and full of holes, like a sponge: some call this Parthian bread. The excellence of the finest kinds of bread depends principally on the goodness of the wheat, and the fineness of the bolter. Some persons knead the dough with eggs or milk, and butter even has been employed for the purpose by nations that have had leisure to cultivate the arts of peace, and to give their attention to the art of making pastry. Picenum still maintains its ancient reputation for making the bread which it was the first to invent, alica228 being the grain employed. The flour is kept in soak for nine days, and is kneaded on the tenth with raisin juice, in the shape of long rolls; after which it is baked in an oven in earthen pots, till they break. This bread, however, is never eaten till it has been well229 soaked, which is mostly done in milk mixed with honey.

CHAP. 28.—WHEN BAKERS WERE FIRST INTRODUCED AT ROME.

There were no bakers at Rome until230 the war with King Perseus, more than five hundred and eighty years after the building of the City. The ancient Romans used to make their own bread, it being an occupation which belonged to the women, as we see the case in many nations even at the present day. Plautus speaks of the artopta, or bread-tin, in his Comedy of the Aulularia,231 though there has been considerable discussion for that very reason among the learned, whether or not that line really belongs to him. We have the fact, too, well ascertained, in the opinion of Ateius Capito, that the cooks in those days were in the habit of making the bread for persons of affluence, while the name of “pistor”232 was only given to the person who pounded, or “pisebat,” the spelt. In those times, they had no cooks in the number of their slaves, but used to hire them for the occasion from the market. The Gauls were the first to employ the bolter that is made of horse-hair; while the people of Spain make their sieves and meal-dressers of flax,233 and the Egyptians of papyrus and rushes.

CHAP. 29.—ALICA.

But among the very first things of all, we ought to speak of the method employed in preparing alica,234 a most delightful and most wholesome food, and which incontestably confers upon Italy the highest rank among the countries that produce the cereals. This delicacy is prepared, no doubt, in Egypt as well, but of a very inferior quality, and not worth our notice. In Italy, however, it is prepared in numerous places, the territories of Verona and Pisæ, for example; but that of Campania is the most highly esteemed. There, at the foot of mountains capped with clouds, runs a plain, not less in all than forty miles in extent. The land here—to give a description first of the nature of the soil—is dusty on the surface, but spongy below, and as porous as pumice. The inconveniences that generally arise from the close vicinity of mountains are here converted into so many advantages: for the soil, acting on it as a sort of filter, absorbs the water of the abundant rains that fall; the consequence of which is, that the water not being left to soak or form mud on the surface, the cultivation is greatly facilitated thereby. This land does not return, by the aid of any springs, the moisture it has thus absorbed, but thoroughly digests it, by warming it in its bosom, in a heated oven as it were. The ground is kept cropped the whole year through, once with panic, and twice with spelt; and yet in the spring, when the soil is allowed to have a moment’s repose, it will produce roses more odoriferous by far than the cultivated rose: for the earth here is never tired of producing, a circumstance in which originated the common saying, that Campania produces more unguents235 than other countries do oil.

In the same degree, however, that the Campanian soil excels that of all other countries, so does that part of it which is known to us as Laboriæ,236 and to the Greeks as Phlegræum, surpass all the rest. This district is bounded on two sides by the consular high road, which leads from Puteoli to Capua on the one side, and from Cumæ on the other.

Alica is prepared from the grain called zea, which we have already mentioned237 as being known to us as “seed” wheat. The grain is cleansed in a wooden mortar, for fear lest stone, from its hardness, should have the effect of grating it. The motive power for raising the pestle, as is generally known, is supplied by slaves working in chains, the end of it being enclosed in a case of iron. After the husks have been removed by this process, the pure grain is broken to pieces, the same implements being employed. In this way, there are three different kinds of alica made, the finest, the seconds, and the coarse, which last is known as “aphærema.”238 Still, however, these various kinds have none of them that whiteness as yet for which they are so distinguished, though even now they are preferable to the Alexandrian alica. With this view—a most singular fact—chalk239 is mixed with the meal, which, upon becoming well incorporated with it, adds very materially to both the whiteness and the shortness240 of the mixture. This chalk is found between Puteoli and Neapolis, upon a hill called Leucogæum;241 and there is still in existence a decree of the late Emperor Augustus, (who established a colony at Capua), which orders a sum of twenty thousand sesterces to be paid annually from his exchequer to the people of Neapolis, for the lease of this hill. His motive for paying this rent, he stated, was the fact that the people of Campania had alleged that it was impossible to make their alica without the help of this mineral. In the same hill, sulphur is found as well, and the springs of Araxus issue from its declivities, the waters of which are particularly efficacious for strengthening the sight, healing wounds, and preventing the teeth from becoming loose.

A spurious kind of alica is made, more particularly of a degenerate kind of zea grown in Africa; the ears of it are larger and blacker than those of the genuine kind, and the straw is short. This grain is pounded with sand, and even then it is with the greatest difficulty that the outer coats are removed; when stripped, the grain fills one half only of the original measure. Gypsum, in the proportion of one fourth, is then sprinkled242 over it, and after the mixture has been well incorporated, it is bolted through a meal-sieve. The portion that remains behind, after this is done, is known as “excepticia,”243 and consists of the coarser parts; while that which has passed through is submitted to a second process, with a finer sieve; and that which then refuses to pass has the name of “secundaria.”244 That, again, which, in a similar manner, is submitted to a third sifting, with a sieve of the greatest fineness, which will only admit of sand passing through it, is known as “cribraria,”245 when it remains on the top of the sieve.

There is another method, again, that is employed every where for adulterating it. They pick out the whitest and largest grains of wheat, and parboil them in earthen pots; these are then dried in the sun till they have regained their original size, after which they are lightly sprinkled with water, and then ground in a mill. A better granæum246 is made from zea than from wheat, although it is nothing else, in fact, but a spurious alica: it is whitened by the addition of boiled milk, in place of chalk.

CHAP. 30. (12.)—THE LEGUMINOUS PLANTS: THE BEAN.

We now come to the history of the leguminous plants, among which the place of honour must be awarded to the bean;247 indeed, some attempts have even been made to use it for bread. Bean meal is known as “lomentum;” and, as is the case with the meal of all leguminous plants, it adds considerably, when mixed with flour, to the weight of the bread. Beans are on sale at the present day for numerous purposes, and are employed for feeding cattle, and man more particularly. They are mixed, also, among most nations, with wheat,248 and panic more particularly, either whole or lightly broken. In our ancient ceremonials, too, bean pottage249 occupies its place in the religious services of the gods. Beans are mostly eaten together with other food, but it is generally thought that they dull the senses, and cause sleepless nights attended with dreams. Hence it is that the bean has been condemned250 by Pythagoras; though, according to some, the reason for this denunciation was the belief which he entertained that the souls of the dead are enclosed in the bean: it is for this reason, too, that beans are used in the funereal banquets of the Parentalia.251 According to Varro, it is for a similar cause that the Flamen abstains from eating beans: in addition to which, on the blossom of the bean, there are certain letters of ill omen to be found.

There are some peculiar religious usages connected with the bean. It is the custom to bring home from the harvest a bean by way of auspice, which, from that circumstance, has the name of “referiva.”252 In sales by public auction, too, it is thought lucky to include a bean in the lot for sale. It is a fact, too, that the bean is the only one among all the grains that fills out at the increase of the moon,253 however much it may have been eaten away: it can never be thoroughly boiled in sea-water, or indeed any other water that is salt.

The bean is the first leguminous plant that is sown; that being done before the setting of the Vergiliæ, in order that it may pass the winter in the ground. Virgil254 recommends that it should be sown in spring, according to the usage of the parts of Italy near the Padus: but most people prefer the bean that has been sown early to that of only three months’ growth; for, in the former case, the pods as well as the stalk afford a most agreeable fodder for cattle. When in blossom more particularly, the bean requires water; but after the blossom has passed off, it stands in need of but very little. It fertilizes255 the ground in which it has been sown as well as any manure; hence it is that in the neighbourhood of Thessaly and Macedonia, as soon as it begins to blossom, they turn up256 the ground.

The bean, too, grows wild in most countries, as in those islands of the Northern Ocean, for instance, which for that reason have been called by us the “Fabariæ.”257 In Mauritania, also, it is found in a wild state in various parts, but so remarkably hard that it will never become soft by boiling.

In Egypt there is a kind of bean258 which grows upon a thorny stalk; for which reason the crocodiles avoid it, being apprehensive of danger to their eyes. This stalk is four cubits in length, and its thickness, at the very most, that of the finger: were it not for the absence of articulations in it, it would resemble a soft reed in appearance. The head is similar to that of the poppy, being of a rose colour: the beans enclosed in this head are not above thirty in number; the leaves are large, and the fruit is bitter and odoriferous. The root, however, is highly esteemed by the natives as a food, whether eaten raw or well boiled; it bears a strong resemblance to that of the reed. This plant grows also in Syria and Cilicia, and upon the banks of Lake Torone in Chalcidice.

CHAP. 31.—LENTILS. PEASE.

Among the leguminous plants the lentil is sown in the month of November, and the pea,259 among the Greeks. The lentil thrives best in a soil that is rather thin than rich, and mostly stands in need of dry weather. There are two kinds of lentil grown in Egypt; one of which is rounder and blacker than the other, which has a peculiar shape of its own. The name of this plant has been applied to various uses, and among others has given origin to our word “lenticula.”260 I find it stated in some authors that a lentil diet is productive of evenness of temper. The pea requires to be sown in a warm, sunny spot, and is ill able to endure cold; hence in Italy and the more rigorous climates, it is sown in the spring only, a light, loose soil being chosen for the purpose.

CHAP. 32.—THE SEVERAL KINDS OF CHICK-PEASE.

The chick-pea261 is naturally salt,262 for which reason it is apt to scorch the ground, and should only be sown after it has been steeped a day in water. This plant presents considerable differences in reference to size, colour,263 form, and taste. One variety resembles in shape a ram’s head, from which circumstance it has received the name of “arietinum;” there are both the white and the black arietinum. There is also the columbine chick-pea, by some known as the “pea of Venus;” it is white, round, and smooth, being smaller than the arietinum, and is employed in the observances of the night festivals or vigils. The chicheling vetch,264 too, is a diminutive kind of chick-pea, unequal and angular, like265 the pea. The chick-pea that is the sweetest in flavour is the one that bears the closest resemblance to the fitch; the pod in the black and the red kinds is more firmly closed than in the white ones.

CHAP. 33.—THE KIDNEY-BEAN.

The pod of the chick-pea is rounded, while in other leguminous plants it is long and broad, like the seed which it contains; in the pea, again, it is of a cylindrical form. In the case of the kidney-bean266 it is usual to eat the pod together with the seed. This last may be sown in all kinds of soils indifferently, between the ides of October267 and the calends of November.268 As soon as ever the leguminous plants begin to ripen, they ought to be plucked, for the pods will very soon open and the seed fall out, in which case it is very difficult to find: the same is the case, too, with the lupine. But before we pass on to the lupine, it will be as well to make some mention of the rape.269

CHAP. 34. (13.)—THE RAPE.

The Latin writers have only treated of this plant in a cursory manner, while those of Greece have considered it a little more attentively; though even they have ranked it among the garden plants. If, however, a methodical arrangement is to be strictly observed, it should be spoken of immediately after corn, or the bean, at all events; for next to these two productions, there is no plant that is of more extensive use. For, in the first place, all animals will feed upon it as it grows; and it is far from being the least nutritious plant in the fields for various kinds of birds, when boiled in water more particularly. Cattle, too, are remarkably fond of the leaves of rape; and the stalks and leaves, when in season, are no less esteemed as a food for man than the sprouts of the cabbage;269 these, too, when turned yellow and left to die in the barn, are even more highly esteemed than270 when green. As to the rape itself, it will keep all the better if left in its mould, after which it should be dried in the open air till the next crop is nearly ripe, as a resource in case of scarcity. Next to those of the grape and corn, this is the most profitable harvest of all for the countries that lie beyond the Padus. The rape is by no means difficult to please in soil, for it will grow almost anywhere, indeed where nothing else can be sown. It readily derives nutriment from fogs and hoar-frosts, and grows to a marvelous size; I have seen them weighing upwards of forty pounds.271 It is prepared for table among us in several ways, and is made to keep till the next crop, its fermentation272 being prevented by preserving it in mustard. It is also tinted with no less than six colours in addition to its own, and with purple even; indeed, that which is used by us as food ought to be of no other colour.273

The Greeks have distinguished two principal species of rape, the male and the female,274 and have discovered a method of obtaining them both from the same seed; for when it is sown thick, or in a hard, cloggy soil, the produce will be male. The smaller the seed the better it is in quality. There are three kinds of rape in all; the first is broad and flat, the second of a spherical shape, and the third, to which the name of “wild” rape275 has been given, throws out a long root, similar in appearance to a radish, with an angular, rough leaf, and an acrid juice, which, if extracted about harvest, and mixed with a woman’s milk, is good for cleansing the eyes and improving defective sight. The colder the weather the sweeter they are, and the larger, it is generally thought; heat makes them run to leaf. The finest rape of all is that grown in the district of Nursia: it is valued at as much as one sesterce276 per pound, and, in times of scarcity, two even. That of the next best quality is produced on Mount Algidus.