62 plint's natural history. [BookXYIII. 



Ittily, again, it takes as many as eight oxen to pant and blow 

 at a single plough. All the operations of agriculture, but this 

 in particular, should be regulated by the oracular precept — 

 '' Kemember that every locality has its own tendencies." 



CHAP. 48. THE VARIOUS KINDS OF PLOUGHS. 



Ploughs are of various kinds. The coulter ^^ is the iron part 

 that cuts up the dense earth before it is broken into pieces, and 

 traces beforehand by its incisions the future furrows, which the 

 share, reversed, °- is to open out with its teeth. Another kind — 

 the common plough-share — is nothing more than a lever, fur- 

 nished with a pointed beak ; while another variety, which is only 

 used in light, easy soils, does not present an edge projecting from 

 the share-beam throughout, but only a small point at the ex- 

 tremity. In a foui'th kind again, this point is larger and formed 

 with a cutting edge ; by the agency of which implement, it 

 both cleaves the ground, and, with the sharp edges at the sides, 

 cuts up the weeds by the roots. There has been invented, at a 

 comparatively recent period, in that part of GauP'^ known as 

 Kha^tia, a plough with the addition of two small wheels, and 

 known by the name of *' plaumorati."^ The extremity of the 

 sliare in this has the form of a spade : it is only used, however, 

 for sowing in cultivated lands, and upon soils which are nearly 

 fallow. The broader the plough-share, the better it is for 

 turning up the clods of earth. Immediately after ploughing, 

 the seed is put into the ground, and then harrows ^^ with long 

 teeth are drawn over it. Lands which have been sown in this 

 way require no hoeing,' but two or three pairs of oxen are em- 

 ployed in ploughing. It is a fair estimate to consider that a 

 single yoke of oxen can work forty jugera of land in the year, 

 where the soil is light, and thirty where it is stubborn. 



CUAT. 49. (19.) — THK MODE OF PLOUGHING. 



In ploughing, the most rigid attention sliould be paid to the 



5' Fee remarks, that the plough here described differs but little from 

 that usfd in some provinces of France. 52 Resupinus. 



^ Gallia Togata. Rhaetia is the modern country of the Orisons. 



*» According to Goropius Bccanus, from phgrat, tlie ancient Gallic for 

 a plough-wheel. Hardouin thinks that it is from the Latin •' plaustra 

 rati ;" and Toinsinet derives it from the Belgic ploum, a plough, and rat, 

 or radt, a wheel. 



^ "Crates;" probably made of hurdles; see Yirgil, Georg. i. 95. 



