34 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY. [Book XVIII. 



wheat yields twenty-two pounds of bread ; while that of Italy, 

 if made into bread baked in tins, 87 will yield two or three 

 pounds more. When the bread is baked in the oven, 88 two 

 pounds must be added in weight in either case. 



(10.) Wheat yields a fine flour 89 of the very highest quality. 

 In African wheat the modius ought to yield half a modius of 

 line flour and five sextarii of pollen, that being the name 

 given to fine wheat meal, in the same way that that of winter 

 wheat is generally known as " flos," or the " flower." This 

 fine meal is extensively used in copper works and paper manu- 

 factories. In addition to the above, the modius should yield 

 four sextarii of coarse meal, and the same quantity of bran. 

 The finest wheaten flour will yield one hundred 90 and twenty- 

 two pounds of bread, and the fine meal of winter wheat one 

 hundred 90 and seventeen, to the modius of grain. When the 

 prices of grain are moderate, meal sells at forty asses the mo- 

 dius, bolted wheaten flour at eight asses more, and bolted 

 flour of winter wheat, at sixteen asses more. There is another 

 distinction again in fine wheaten flour, which originated for- 

 merly in the days of L. Paulus. There were three classes of 

 wheat ; the first of which would appear to have yielded seven- 

 iecii pounds of bread, the second eighteen, and the third nine- 

 teen pounds and a third : to these were added two pounds and 

 a Imlf of seconds, 91 and the same quantity of brown 91 bread, 

 with six sextarii of bran. 92 



Winter wheat never ripens all at once, and yet there is none 

 of the cereals that can so ill brook any delay ; it being of so 

 delicate a nature, that the ears directly they are ripe will begin 

 to shed their grain. So long, however, as it is in stalk, it is 

 exposed to fewer risks than other kinds of wheat, from the fact 



fe7 " Artopticio." See c. 27 of this Book. 



; s Without tin, probably ; or the tin bread may have been baked 

 before the fire, similar to the method adopted at the present day with the 

 American ovens. 



" Similago." Founders still use meal occasionally for making moulds 

 is also employed in making paper. 



> The mention of "hundreds" here is evidently faulty, unless the other 



part ot he passage is corrupt. Fee suggests twenty-two and twenty seven. 



-m above we find him stating that " secundaritis," "seconds" 



cibftrius," or "coarse," meal, are the same thing. His con- 



tradictKUW cannot apparently be reconciled. 



' this passage, as Brotier remarks, is evidently corrupt. 



