ROMAN AGRICULTURE. 403 



Threshing was performed in the area, or threshing-floor, a 

 circular space of from forty to sixty feet in diameter, in the 

 open air, with a smooth, hard surface. The floor was generally 

 made of well-wrought clay, mixed with the leeds of oil. Some- 

 times it was paved. It was generally placed near the barn, in 

 order that, when a sudden shower happened during the process 

 of threshing, the ears might be carried in there out of the rain. 

 Sometimes, also, the ears of unthreshed wheat of the whole 

 farm were first put in this barn, and carried out to the area 

 afterward. Varro and Columella recommended that the situa- 

 tion of the area be high and airy, and within sight of the farm- 

 er's or bailiff's house, to prevent fraud ; distant from gardens 

 and orchards, because, though dung and straw are beneficial to 

 the roots of vegetables, they are destructive when they fall on 

 their leaves. The grain being spread over the area a foot or two 

 in thickness, it was threshed or beaten out by the hoofs of cattle 

 or horses, driven around, or a machine dragging over it. " This 

 machine," Varro informs us, " was made of a board, rough with 

 stones or iron, with a driver of great weight placed on it." A 

 machine composed of rollers studded with iron knobs, and fur- 

 nished with a seat for the driver, was used in the Carthaginian 

 territory. Sometimes they also threshed with rods or flails. 

 Wheat was cleaned or winnowed by throwing it from one part 

 of the floor to another (in the wind, when there was any) with 

 a kind of a shovel called a ventilabrum ; another implement, 

 called a van, probably a kind of sieve, was used when there was 

 no wind. After being dressed, the grain was laid in the gran- 

 ary, and the straw either laid aside for litter, or, what is not a 

 little remarkable, "sprinkled with brine/' then, when dried, 

 rolled up in bundles, and so given to the oxen for hay. 



Haymaking, among the Romans, was performed much in the 

 same way as in modern times. The meadows were mown when 

 the flowers of the grass began to fade. "As it dries," says 

 Varro, " it is turned with forks. It is then tied up in bundles of 

 four pounds each, and carried home, and what is left strewn 

 upon the meadow is raked together and added to the crop." 

 "A good mower," Columella informs us, "cuts a jugerum of 

 meadow, and binds twelve hundred bundles of hay." It is 

 probable that this quantity, which is nearly two tons, was the 



