458 pliny's NATURAL HISTORY. [Book XVII. 



son of their prolific soil, we have seen the manure passed 

 through a sieve like so much flour, and perfectly devoid, 

 through lapse of time, 1 of all bad smell or repulsive look, 

 being changed in its appearance to something rather agreeable 

 than otherwise. In more recent times it has been found that 

 the olive thrives more particularly in soil that has been ma- 

 nured with the ashes 2 of the lime-kiln. To the ancient rules 

 Yarro 3 has added, that corn land should be manured with horse- 

 dung, that being the lightest manure of all, while meadow 

 , land, he says, thrives better with a manure of a more heavy 

 nature, and supplied by beasts that have been fed upon barley ; 

 this last tending more particularly to the better growth of 

 grass. 4 Some persons, indeed, prefer the dung of the beasts 

 of burden to that of oxen even, the manure of the sheep to 

 that of the goat, and the manure of the ass to all others, the 

 reason being that that animal masticates the most slowly of 

 them all. Experience, however, has pronounced against these 

 dicta of Yarro and Columella ; but it is universally agreed by 

 all writers that there is nothing more beneficial than to turn 5 

 up a crop of lupines, before they have podded, with either the 

 plough or the fork, or else to cut them and bury them in 

 heaps at the roots of trees and vines. It is thought, also, 

 that in places where no cattle are kept, it is advantageous to 

 manure the earth with stubble or even fern. " You can make 

 manure," Cato 6 says, "of litter, or else of lupines, straw, 

 beanstalks, or the leaves of the holm-oak and quercus. Pull 

 up the wallwort from among the crops of corn, as also the 

 hemlock that grows there, together with the thick grass and 

 sedge that you find growing about the willow-plots ; of all this, 

 mixed with rotten leaves, 7 you may make a litter for sheep and 



1 In lapse of time, if exposed to the air, it is reduced to the state of 

 humus or mould. 



2 Consisting of lime mixed with vegetable ashes. 



3 De Re Rust. i. 38. 



4 " Herbas." This would appear to mean grass only here ; though 

 Fee seems, to think that it means various kinds of herbs. 



5 This method is sometimes adopted in England with buckwheat, trefoil, 

 peas, and other leguminous plants ; and in the south of France lupines are 

 still extensively used in the same manner, after the usage of the ancient 

 Romans here described. The French also employ, but more rarely, for 

 the same purpose, the large turnip, vetches, peas, trefoil, Windsor beans, 

 sanfoin, lucerne, &c. ; but it is found a very expensive practice, 



6 De Re Rust. 37. 



7 " Frondam putidam." Fee thinks that this expression is used in 



