1 6 % AGBICULTURE . 



Some are said to be suited to free and dry, others to strong 

 and moist land. Siligo, triticum, and far adoreum appear 

 to have been the favourite sorts ; and the two first varie- 

 ties cannot have been very far removed, if Pliny's state- 

 ment, that siligo sown on certain lands for three years 

 turns into triticum, be correct. He, however, starting 

 with the maxim, that no book is so bad that something 

 may not be learned from it, picks up a good many loose 

 stories, and he is, if we remember right, the author who 

 vouches that if oats be sown on a certain day of the moon, 

 they will come up barley. Of barley there were several 

 varieties, both in colour and form of the grain " longius 

 leviusque, aut brevius, aut rotundius, candidius, nigrius, 

 vel cui purpura est" of which Pliny says that the white 

 was least able to stand bad weather. All the authors 

 agree that barley prospers only in a free and dry soil. It 

 was sown in September and October, and again from 

 January to March. Spring sowing appears to be less con- 

 demned in the case of barley than of wheat. 



The mode of sowing grain affords, perhaps, the most 

 marked distinction between Roman and modern practice. 

 Their system was twofold. The land was well reduced by 

 the irpex, which was our harrow, and was used both for 

 pulverization and for drawing weeds to the surface, and by 

 the crates, which was an implement for crushing clods. 

 Both these were worked by oxen. If the land were 

 naturally dry, it was next drawn into ridges (similar, 

 probably, to our turnip ridges) by a double mould-board 

 plough. The seed was then sown by hand broadcast on 

 these ridges, and the major part, of course, settled into 

 the furrows. It was then covered by hand with rastra 

 i. e. rakes,* and lightly, for the ridges certainly were not 



* There is little or no evidence that the rostrum was ever drawn by 

 cattle, though, from the expression " gravibus rastris," used by Columella 

 in his poetical book, and "iniquo pondere rastri," by Virgil, com- 

 mentators have assimilated it to our harrow. As Columella was speak- 

 ing of an implement to be used, not on the farm, but in a garden, the 

 reasonable conclusion is that it was to be worked by hand. Probably a 



