Book I. AGRICULTURE OF THE ROMANS. 25 



Theophrastus observes, " to let the earth feel the cold of winter, and the sun of summer, 

 to invert the soil, and render it free, light, and clear of weeds, so that it can most easily 

 afford nourishment." (Theo. de Caus. Plant., lib. iii. cap. 25.) 



129. Manuring was held in such high esteem by the Romans, that immortality was 

 given to Sterculius for the invention. They collected it from every source which has 

 been thought of by the moderns, vegetable, animal, and mineral, territorial, aquatic, and 

 marine. Animal dung was divided into three kinds, that produced by birds, that by 

 men, and that by cattle. Pigeon-dung was preferred to all, and next human ordure and 

 urine. Pigeon-dung was used as a top-dressing ; and human dung, mixed with clean- 

 ings of the villa, and with urine, was applied to the roots of the vine and the olive. " M. 

 Varro," says Pliny, " extols the dung of thrushes from the aviaries, as food for swine 

 and oxen, and asserts that there is no food that fattens them more quickly." Varro pre- 

 fers it also as a manure ; on which Pliny observes, " we may have a good opinion of the 

 manners of our times, if our ancestors had such large aviaries, as to procure from them 

 dung to their fields." {Nat. Hist., lib. xvii. cap. 9.) Dunghills were directed to be 

 placed near the villa, their bottoms hollowed out to retain the moisture, and their sides 

 and top defended from the sun by twigs and leaves. Dung usually remained in the 

 heap a year, and was laid on in autumn and spring, the two sowing seasons. No more 

 was to be spread than could be ploughed in the same day. Crops that were sickly were 

 revived by sowing over them the dust of dung, especially that of birds, that is, by what is 

 now called a top-dressing. Frequent and moderate dungings are recommended as pre- 

 ferable to occasional and very abundant supplies. Green crops, especially lupines, were 

 sown, and before they came into pod ploughed in as manures : they were also cut and 

 buried at the roots of fruit trees for the same purpose. Trees, twigs, stubble, &c, were 

 burned for manure. Cato says, " If you cannot sell wood and twigs, and have no 

 stone that will burn into lime, make charcoal of the wood, and burn in the corn fields the 

 twigs and small branches that remain." Palladius says that " lands which have been 

 manured by ashes of trees will not require manure for five years." (Lib. i. 6.) Stubble 

 was very generally burned, as it was also among the Jews. Lime was used as a manure, 

 especially for vines and olives. Cato gives particular directions how to form the kiln 

 and burn it. He prefers a truncated cone, ten feet in diameter at the bottom, twenty 

 feet high, and three feet in diameter at the top. The grate covers the whole bottom ; 

 there is a pit below for the ashes, and two furnace-doors, one for drawing out the burnt 

 stone, and the other for admitting air to the fire. The fuel used was wood or charcoal. 

 (Cap. 38.) 



130. Marl was known to the earlier Roman authors, but not used in Italy. It is men- 

 tioned by Pliny as having been " found out in Britain and Gaul It is a certain rich- 

 ness of earth," he says, " like the kernels in animal bodies that are increased by fatness." 

 Marl, he says, was known to the Greeks, " for is there any tiling," he adds, " that has 

 not been tried by them ? They call the marl-like white clay leucargillon, which they use 

 in the lands of Megara, but only where they are moist and cold." (Nat. Hist., lib. xvii. 

 cap. 5. 8.) But though the Romans did not use marl, because they had not dis- 

 covered it in Italy, they were aware, as Varro and others inform us, of its use. " When 

 I marched an army," says Varro, " to the Rhine, in Transalpine Gaul, I passed through 

 some countries where I saw the fields manured with white fossil clay." (Lib. i. 

 cap. 7.) This must have been either marl or chalk. 



131. Sowing was performed by hand from a basket, as in modern times ; the hand, as 

 Pliny observes, moving with the step, and always with the right foot. The corns and 

 leguminous seeds were covered with the plough, and sometimes so as to rise in drills ; the 

 smaller seeds with the hoe and rake. 



132. In reaping corn, it was a maxim, that it is " better to reap two days too soon than 

 two days too late." Varro mentions three modes of performing the operation : cutting 

 close to the ground with hooks, a handful at a time ; cutting off their ears with a curved 

 stick, and a saw attached ; and cutting the stalks in the middle, leaving the lower part or 

 stubble to be cut afterwards. Columella says, " Many cut the stalks by the middle, with 

 drag-hooks, and these either beaked or toothed : many gather the ears with mergee, and 

 others with combs. This method does very well where the crop is thin ; but it is very 

 troublesome where the corn is thick. If, in reaping with hooks, a part of the straw 

 is cut off with the ears, it is immediately gathered into a heap, or into the nubilarium, and 

 after being dried, by being exposed to the sun, is threshed. But if the ears only are cut 

 off, they are carried directly to the granary, and threshed during the winter." (Co/., lib. ii. 

 cap. 21.) To these modes Pliny adds that of pulling up by the roots; and remarks, 

 generally, that, " where they cover their houses with stubble, they cut high, to preserve 

 this of as great a length as possible ; when there is a scarcity of hay, they cut low, that 

 straw may be added to the chaff." (Nat. Hist., lib. xviii. cap. 30.) 



133. A reaping machine used in the plains of Gaul, is mentioned both by Pliny and Palladius, which w 

 thus described by the latter : — " In the jlains of Gaul, they use this quick way of reaping, and, without 



