102 PLINY'S NATUHAL HISTORY. [Book XVIII. 



crabs should be burnt 82 alive among the trees on which the 

 vines are trained, to prevent these from being attacked by coal 

 blight; while others say that the flesh of the silurus 83 should 

 be burnt in a slow fire, in such a way that the smoke may be 

 dispersed by the wind throughout the vineyard. 



Yarro informs us, that if at the setting of the Lyre, which 

 is the beginning of autumn, a painted grape 84 is consecrated in 

 the midst of the vineyard, the bad weather will not be pro- 

 ductive of such disastrous results as it otherwise would. Archi- 

 bius 85 has stated, in a letter to Antiochus, king of Syria, that 

 it' a bramble-frog 86 is buried in a new earthen vessel, in the 

 middle of a corn-field, there will be no storms to cause injury. 



CHAP. 71. WORK TO BE DOtfE AFTER THE SUMMER SOLSTICE. 



The following are the rural occupations for this interval 

 of time the ground must have another turning up, and the 

 trees must be cleared about the roots and moulded up, where 

 the heat of the locality requires it. Those plants, however, 

 which are in bud must not be spaded at the roots, except where 

 the soil is particularly rich. The seed-plots, too, must be well 

 cleared with the hoe, the barley- harvest got in, and the 

 threshing-floor prepared for the harvest with chalk, as Cato 87 

 tells us, slackened with amurca of olives ; Virgil 88 makes men- 

 tion of a method still more laborious even. In general, how- 

 ever, it is considered sufficient to make it perfectly level, and 

 then to cover it with a solution of cow-dung 89 and water ; this 

 being thought sufficient to prevent the dust from rising. 



82 This absurd practice is mentioned in the Geoponica, B. v. c. 31. 



83 As to this fish, see B. ix. c. 17. 



84 " Uva picta " This absurdity does not seem to be found in any of 

 Yarro's works that have come down to us. 



85 Nothing whatever is known of him or his works ; and, as Fee says, 

 apparently the loss is little to be regretted. 



86 Rubeta rana. 



87 De Re Rust. 129. Cato, however, does not mention chalk, but Virgil 

 (Georg, i. 178) does. Poinsinet thinks that this is a " lapsus memoriae" 

 in Pliny, but Fee suggests that there may have been an omission by the 

 copyists. 



8S See the last Note. He recommends that it should be turned up with 

 the hand, rammed down with " tenacious chalk," and levelled with a large 

 roller. 



89 Both cow-dung and marc of olives are still employed in some parts of 

 France, in preparing the threshing floor. 



