Chap. 49.] THE MODE OF PLOUGHING. 65 



after the seed has been put in. This last harrowing is done, 

 where the usage of the locality will allow of it, with either a 

 toothed harrow, or else a plank attached to the plough. This ope- 

 ration of covering in the seed is called "lirare," from which is 

 derived the word " deliratio." 64 Virgil, 65 it is generally thought, 

 intends to recommend sowing after four ploughings, in the 

 passage where he says that land will bear the best crop, which 

 has twice felt the sun and twice the cold. Where the soil is 

 dense, as in most parts of Italy, it is a still better plan to go 

 over the ground five times before sowing ; in Etruria, they give 

 the land as many as nine ploughings first. The bean, however, 

 and the vetch may be sown with no risk, without turning up 

 the land at all ; which, of course, is so much labour saved. 



We must not here omit to mention still one other method of 

 ploughing, which the devastations of warfare have suggested 

 in Italy that lies beyond the Padus. The Salassi, 66 when 

 ravaging the territories which lay at the foot of the Alps, made 

 an attempt to lay waste the crops of panic and millet that were 

 just appearing above the ground. Finding, however, that 

 Nature resisted all their endeavours, they passed the plough 

 over the ground, the result of which was that the crops were 

 more abundant than ever ; and this it was that first taught us 

 the method of ploughing in, expressed by the word " artrare," 

 otherwise " aratrare," in my opinion the original form. This 

 is done either just as the stem begins to develope itself, or else 

 when it has put forth as many as two or three leaves. Nor 

 must we withhold from the reader a more recent method, which 

 was discovered the year but one before this, 67 in the territory 

 of the Treviri. The crops having been nipped by the extreme 

 severity of the winter, the people sowed the land over again 

 in the month of March, and had a most abundant harvest. 



We shall now proceed to a description of the peculiar methods 

 employed in cultivating each description of grain. 



64 " A gong crooked ;" hence its meaning of, folly, dotage, or madness. 

 63 Georg. i. 47. Servius seems to understand it that the furrow should 

 be untouched for two days and two nights before it is gone over again. 



66 Fee declines to give credit to this story. 



67 A.U.C. 830. 



VOL. IV. 



