COMPARATIVE METROLOGY. 385 



occupation of the space in question, and not in any special 

 manner with the two marches; and thus we come back to 

 the common opinion that the space was really unoccupied. Now, 

 what became of these spaces when the whole system of which 

 they formed part was forgotten ? I apprehend that the 7 jugera 

 included only the clear cultivable space, and that consequently 

 the strip in question came to be an addition to the area of the 

 fundus. On the hypothesis already mentioned, that the regular 

 form of the latter was a rectangle of which the longer side 

 was 480 feet and the shorter 420, the whole circuit would be 

 1800 feet. The space gained would therefore amount to 7264 

 feet, or on the average jugerum, to nearly 1038 feet. Of the 

 residual phenomenon, to use what was once a popular phrase, of 

 the existence of 1000 Paris feet of difference between the pezza 

 and the jugerum, my hypothesis would thus explain five-sixths 

 and leave the difference so small as to require no explanation. It 

 is difficult to believe that the limiting strip was counted in the 

 allotment, because it would make the jugera for practical pur- 

 poses of unequal size, a thing in itself inconvenient and liable 

 in many cases to produce injustice, and there is therefore a 

 strong presumption in favour of a view which at once explains 

 what has become of it and why the pezza exceeds the jugerum. 



9. The existence of a rubbio of oats of about four-fifths 

 the size of that of wheat, while the ordinary proportion of seed 

 corn used for oats exceeds that for wheat in about the propor- 

 tion of 8 to 5, suggests the idea that oats, which were certainly 

 but little cultivated in Italy in old times, (and probably are not 

 now), were not usually sown over the full surface of the rubbio. 

 There may have been a simple course of husbandry, namely, the 

 whole crop of wheat one year, half fallow and half oats the two 

 next years, and then wheat again, so that every part of the land 

 was fallow at intervals of 3 years. Twenty other guesses might 

 be made, but the fact is curious that the measure of oats would 

 serve for about half as much land as that of wheat. As for the 

 third rubbio, that of salt, it seems to have been formed on the 

 principle of weighing as much as that of wheat. 



At the end of Niebuhr's letter to Savigny he observes that 

 7 jugera must have been sufficient for one family, because he 

 knew a vigneron who, holding 11. pezze as a metayer, supported 



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