36 plint's NATFEAL HISTOET. [Book XVIII. 



Avheat, if the soil is favourable, as at Byzacium,^ a champaign 

 district of Africa, will yield as much as one hundred and fifty* 

 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 IS'ero sent him three 

 hundred and sixty stalks all issuing from a single grain.^ The 

 plains of Leontium in Sicily, and other places in that island, 

 as well as the whole of Ba)tica, and Egypt more particularly, 

 yield produce a hundred-fold. The most prolific kinds of 

 wheat are the ramose wheat,^ and that known as the '* hun- 

 dred-grain "° wheat. Before now, as many as one hundred 

 beans, too, have been found on a single stalk. 



CniP. 22. — SESAME. ERYSIMUM, OE lEIO. HOEMINTJM. 



We have spoken^ of sesame, millet, and panic as belonging 

 to the summer grains. Sesame" 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.^ 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"^ by the 

 Greeks, though resembling cummin ^° in appearance; it is sown 

 at the same time as sesame : no animal will eat either this or 

 irio whQe green. 



CHAP. 23. THE MODE OF GRINDIN-G COEI^. 



All the grains are not easily broken. In Etruria they first 



' Sec R. xvii. c. 3. 



2 AVc knuwof no such frnitfulness as this in the wheat of Europe. 

 Fifteen-fold, us Fee remarks, is the utmost amount of produce that can be 

 anticipated. 



^ Foe mentions instances of 150, 92, and 63 stalks arising from a single 

 pram; but all these fall far short of the marvels here mentioned^by 

 Flinv. ^ 



* The Triticum compositura of Linnaeus ; supposed to have orio-inally 

 come from Fpypt or Barbnry. o j 



^ '' Centigvanium." I'rubably the same as the last. 



". In c. 10 of this Eook. 7 ggg ^ ^q 



« Pinguius. 9 Already mentioned in c. 10. 



Sec li. X1.X. c. 4/ ; and B. XX. c. 57. 



