ANCIENT AGRICULTURAL LITERATURE. 169 



disturbing the surface thereby was beneficial to the land. 

 The reaping on Achilles' shield is similar to ours, except 

 that it implies a greater division of labour than we usually 

 carry out. In a previous passage, Homer declares the 

 practice of rich men to have been, to start a gang of reapers 

 at each end of a field of corn, and to their approach he 

 likens that of the Grecian and Trojan hosts. Pliny, in a 

 very obscure passage, and Palladius, in one which is more 

 minute, describe a reaping-machine which was used in the 

 large farms in Gaul. We do not think that Messrs. 

 Ransome and Mr. Hornsby would take the words of either 

 author, or both combined, as working directions for the 

 construction of the implement. This much is evident, that 

 the body of the machine was fixed on an axle which con- 

 nected two wheels. To the axle were fixed a pair of shafts, 

 into which a very steady working ox was harnessed, not in 

 the usual manner, but, as a stable-boy would say, with his 

 head where his tail should be. Consequently, when he 

 walked on, instead of pulling by the shafts, he pushed by 

 them, and drove the implement into the standing corn. 

 By some machinery which we cannot undertake to describe, 

 it collected ears of corn, cut them off, and dropped them 

 into a receptacle " in carpentum :" Pliny says " vallum." 

 Palladius says, that this implement answered well in open 

 and even land, and that some farmers in Gaul cut their 

 whole harvest with it without employing any reapers. 



Threshing presents as many varieties as reaping, and 

 most of them must have been very old. Almost every one 

 can be identified with some expression in the 27th and 

 following verses of the 28th chapter of Isaiah. Threshing 

 was generally performed immediately after harvest, and 

 frequently in the fields ; but Columella says, that where 

 the ears only were cut off, they could be carried into the 

 granary and threshed during the winter. The threshing 

 was by flail, by treading out (for which horses are said to 

 have been better than oxen), and latterly by a machine 

 drawn by cattle, described sometimes as having teeth, 



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