24 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTOBY. [Book XVIII. 



grain has several coats, but in barley, 19 more particularly, it is 

 naked and exposed ; the same, too, with arinca, 20 but most of 

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

 but the ear is more bearded 21 in the last. Wheat, barley, and 

 winter- wheat 22 are threshed out ; they are cleaned, too, for 

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

 necessity for parching 23 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 these grains barley is the lightest,* 4 its weight rarely 

 exceeding fifteen 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 meal 25 of olyra, 26 

 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/' 27 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. Yerrius 



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



I other meal than that of corn. 



19 If by " tunica'* lie means the husk of chaff, which surrounds the 

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

 oat. 



Only another name, Fee thinks, for the Triticum hibernum, or winter- 

 wheat. Spelt or zea has been suggested, as also the white barley of the 

 south of Europe ; see c. 20. 



21 Egyptian wheat, or rather what is called mummy-wheat, is bearded 

 equally to barley. 



22 Siligo. ^ Before grinding. 



24 Oats and rye excepted. 



25 Here the word "far" means " a meal," or "flour," a substitute for 

 that of " far," or " spelt." 



26 Triticum monococcum, according to some. Fee identifies it with 

 the Triticum spelta of Linnaeus. 



27 A variety, probably, of the Triticum hibenmm of Linnaeus, with white 

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

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



