24 plint's natural history. [Book XVIII. 



^ralu has several coats, but in barley/' more particularly, it is 

 naked and exposed ; the same, too, with arincaj^" but most of 

 all, the oat. The stem is taller in wheat than it is in barley, 

 but the ear is more bearded"-" in the last. Wheat, barley, and 

 winter- wheat" are threshed out ; they are cleaned, too, for 

 sowing just as they are prepared for the mill, there being no 

 necessity for parching^^ 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 tlicse grains barley is the lightest,** its weight rarely 

 exceeding fii'teen 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 meaP of olyra,^^ 

 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," ^^ 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. Vemus 

 states that for three hundred years the Romans made use of no 

 other raeal than that of corn. 



'^ If by " tunica" he means the husk of chaff, which surrounds the 

 grain, the assertion is contrary to the fact, in relation to barley and the 

 oat. 



JO Only another name, Fee thinks, for the Triticumhibernum, or winter- 

 wheat. Sp<-lt or zea has been suggested, as also the white barley of the 

 south of Europe ; see c. 20. 



2' Kpyptian wheat, or rather what is called mummy- wheat, is bearded 

 f quail y to barley. 



i>iligo. 2,'5 Before grinding. 



-' Oats and rye excepted. 



,, " ^T^^'?, ^'^""'^ "'!''*■" "^^'^^s "a meal," or "flour," a substitute for 

 that of ^'far," or '•ppolt." 



,v "^T".^'""" "••>"'>coccum, according to some. F4e identifies it with 

 the Iniicum spclta of Linnsus. 



" A vari<'ty probuhly, of the Triticum hibernum of LinnjBUS, with white 

 prams ; the white- wheat of the French, from which the ancient Gauls 

 made their malt ; hence the French word " brasser," to " brew " 



