Chap. 56.] THE PROPER TIMES FOR SOWING. 73 



not be done about the period of the winter solstice ; for this 

 very good reason the winter seeds, if put in before the 

 winter solstice, will make their appearance above ground on 

 the seventh day, whereas, if they are sown just after it, they 

 will hardly appear by the fortieth. There are some, however, 

 who begin very early, and have a saying to justify their doing 

 so, to the effect that if seed sown too early often disappoints, 

 seed put in too late always does so. On the other hand, again, 

 there are some who maintain that it is better to sow in 

 spring than in a bad autumn ; and they say that if they find 

 themselves obliged to sow in spring, they would choose the 

 period that intervenes between the prevalence of the west 

 winds 6 and the vernal equinox. Some persons, however, take 

 no notice of the celestial phenomena, and only regulate their 

 movements by the months. In spring they put in flax, the 

 oat, and the poppy, up to the feast of the Quinquatria, 7 as we 

 find done at the present day by the people of Italy beyond the 

 Padus. There, too, they sow beans and winter-wheat in the 

 mouth of November, and spelt at the end of September, up 

 to the ides of October : 8 others, however, sow this last after 

 the ides of October, as late as the calends of November. 9 



The persons who do this take no notice, consequently, of the 

 phenomena of Nature, while others, again, lay too much stress 

 upon them, and hence, by these refined subtleties and dis- 

 tinctions, only add to their blindness ; for here are ignorant 

 rustics, not only dealing with a branch of learning, but that 

 branch astronomy ! It must still, however, be admitted that 

 the observation of the heavens plays a very important part in 

 the operations of agriculture ; and Virgil, 10 we find, gives it as 

 his advice, that before any thing else, we should learn the 

 theory of the winds, and the revolutions of the stars ; for, as he 

 says, the agriculturist, no less than the mariner, should regu- 

 late his movements thereby. It is an arduous attempt, and 

 almost beyond all hope of success, to make an endeavour to in- 

 troduce the divine science of the heavens to the uninformed 



8 Favonius. See B. ii. c. 47. 



7 The five days' festival in honour of Minerva. It begins on the four- 

 teenth before the calends of April, or on the nineteenth of March. Virgil, 

 Georg. i. 208, says that flax and the poppy should be sown in autumn. 



8 Fifteenth of October ' 9 First of November. 

 . Georg. i. 204. 



