10f) PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY. [Book XVIII. 



bitter, 12 as in the lupine and the chicheling vetch. It is in 

 wheat more particularly that insects breed, as it is apt to heat 

 from the density of its juices, and the grain is covered with a 

 thick bran. In barley the chaff is thinner, and the same is the 

 case with all the leguminous seeds : it is for this reason that they 

 do not ordinarily breed insects. The bean, however, is covered 

 with a coat of a thicker substance ; and hence it is that it fer- 

 ments. Some persons sprinkle wheat, in order to make it 

 keep the longer, with amurca 13 of olives, a quadrantal to a 

 thousand modii : others, again, with powdered Chalcidian or 

 Carian chalk, or with worm-wood. 14 There is a certain earth 

 found at Olynthus, and at Cerinthus, in Euboea, which pre- 

 vents grain from spoiling. If garnered in the ear, grain is 

 hardly ever found to suffer any injury. 



The best plan, however, of preserving grain, is to lay it up 

 in trenches, called " siri," as they do in Cappadocia, Thracia, 

 Spain, and at * * * in Africa. Particular care is taken to 

 dig these trenches in a dry soil, and a layer of chaff is then 

 placed at the bottom ; the grain, too, is always stored in the 

 ear. In this case, if no air is allowed to penetrate to the corn, 

 we may rest assured that no noxious insects will ever breed 

 in it. Yarro 15 says, that wheat, if thus stored, will keep as 

 long as fifty years, and millet a hundred ; and he assures us 

 that beans and other leguminous grain, if put away in oil jars 

 with a covering of ashes, will keep for a great length of time. 

 He makes a statement, also, to the effect that some beans were 

 preserved in a cavern in Ambracia from the time of King 

 Pyrrhus until the Piratical War of Pompeius Magnus, a period 

 of about two hundred and twenty years. 



The chick-pea is the only grain in which no insect will 

 breed while in the granary. Some persons place upon the 

 heaps of the leguminous grains pitchers full of vinegar and 

 coated with pitch, a stratum of ashes being laid beneath ; and 

 they fancy that if this is done, no injury will happen. Some, 

 again, store them in vessels which have held salted provisions, 

 with a coating of plaster on the top, while other persons are 



12 And so repel the attacks of insects. 



13 This would not only spoil the flavour, but absolutely injure the corn 

 as well. 



14 This also, if practised to any extent, would infallibly spoil the grain. 



15 De Ee Rust. i. 57. 



