ANCIENT AGRICULTURAL LITERATURE. 165 



it was ploughed down as mown, a point on which the 

 writers insist very strongly, and it appears to have received 

 the same culture which we have described above. The 

 fallow-break was called vervactum. In addition to these 

 ordinary corn lands they had a small proportion which 

 they called restibilis, as being capable of great endurance ; 

 land which had qualities analogous to those possessed by a 

 horse which can go at a great pace and stay at it : or by a 

 vocalist who can hold a note for an indefinite period. This 

 land bore a crop every year. Pliny speaks of land which 

 was so kindly that the crop smothered everything and 

 required no weeding ; * and Cato says, that as soon as the 

 corn was cleared off, this land might be sown with vetches 

 on a single furrow without manure, that it might be 

 pastured down in December, and would still yield an 

 undiminished crop in spring. Lands which had rested 

 long, or were fresh brought into cultivation, were called 

 novalia, and were subjected to a severer course of cropping 

 than the old tilled land. Barley was considered to be a 

 severer crop than any other. This epitome of grain- 

 growing as practised by the Romans was applicable not 

 only to Italy, but certainly to Sicily, to Spain, to the 

 province which they called Africa, and probably to other 

 southern provinces. Particular notices occur of parts of 

 Syria and of Egypt, and Mesopotamia, where inundations 

 made all the land restibilis. Practices to which we shall 

 briefly refer are spoken of by Pliny as prevalent in Gaul 

 and Britain, which are represented to have been grain- 

 exporting provinces. 



We must lump together in one sentence the various 

 herbs which were cultivated by the Romans as green food 

 for cattle ; and we regret that we can give so little infor- 

 mation respecting them. Cicer pulse of some kind unde 



* Pliny's expression is "omnia base" (i.e. hoeing and weeding) 

 " supervacua facit indulgentia cceli." Columella says, " cceli conditio et 

 terrse bonitas ea est," &c. Columella says also, that on ordinary land 

 lupines are the only crop which does not require weeding, because they 

 smother all weeds. 



