86 PLIJfT's NATURAL HISTORT. 



other hand, it is a thin, meagre land, as soon as the heat Gomes' 

 on, it will be dried up, and so lose all the moisture which 

 should be reserved to nourish the seed when sown. It is a much 

 better plan, beyond a doubt, to plough such soils as these 

 autumn. 



Cato " lays down the following rules for the operations ol 

 spring. "Ditches," he says, ''should be dug in the seed- 

 plots, vines should be grafted, and the elm, the fig, the olive, 

 and other fruit-trees planted in dense and humid soils. Such 

 meadows ''^ as are not irrigated, must be manured in a drj; 

 moon, protected from the western blasts, and carefully cleaned : 

 noxious weeds must be rooted up, fig-trees cleared, new seed- 

 plots made, and the old ones dressed : all this should be dont 

 before you begin to hoe the vineyard. When the pear is it 

 Idoasom, too, you should begin to plough, where it is a meagre 

 gravelly soil. When you have done all this, ^^ou may plougl 

 the more heavj^, watery soils, doing this the last of all." 



The proper time for ploughing, then,'° is denoted by these 

 two signs, the earliest fruit of the lentisk ^^ making its appear- 

 ance, and the blossoming of the pear. There is a third sign 

 however, as well, the flowering of the squill among the bul- 

 bous,^^ and of the narcissus among the garland, plants. Fo] 

 both the squill and the narcissus, as well as the lentisk, flowej 

 three times, denoting by their first flowering the first perioc 

 for ploughing, by the second flowering the second, and by the 

 third flowering the last ; in this way it is that one thing afford; 

 hints for another. There is one precaution, too, that is by nc 

 means the least important among them all, not to let ivy toucl 

 the bean while in blossom; for at this period the ivy is noxious^ 

 to it, and most baneful in its effects. Some plants, again 

 afford certain signs which bear reference more particularly t( 

 themselves, the fig for instance ; when a few leaves only ar( 

 found shooting from the summit, like a cup in shape, then it ii 

 more particularly that the fig-tree should be planted. 



CHAP. 66. WORK TO BE DONE AFTER THE VERNAL EQUINOX. 



The vernal equinox appears to end on the eighth®^ day be 



"" De He Rust. 40. -JS gee B. xvii. c. 8. 



'''' Alhidiiioj to his quotation from Cicero in c, 61. 



^" Or mastich. ei ggg e. 7 of this Book. 



9- It IS not known whence he derived this unfounded notion. 



« Twenty-fifth of March. 





