ii8 HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING. 



roads, and since Caesar makes known the existence of 

 bridges on the Aisne, the Rhine, the Loire, the Allier, and 

 the Seine. 



Their skill in agriculture appears to have astonished 

 the Romans. While the latter were using a most primi- 

 tive plough, Pliny writes of the Gauls : ' There has been 

 invented, at a comparatively recent period, in that part 

 of Gaul known as Rhaetia (Gallia Togata), a plough with 

 the addition of two small wheels, and known by the name 

 of " plaumorati " (supposed to be derived from the Belgic 



ploum, a plough, and irit or rack, a wheel) The 



Gauls have invented a method of carrying their plough 

 on small wheels. Their ploughshare, which is flat like a 

 shovel, ploughs very well through the soil. A pair of 

 oxen suffice. After sowing the seed, they harrow with a 

 kind of iron hurdle with spikes or teeth, and which is 

 dragged over the ground.' From the various notices of 

 Gaulish agriculture given by ancient writers, we are led to 

 believe that this people were the most skilled in tilling the 

 soil of all the Western nations. 



They were naturally agriculturists, and we may sup- 

 pose that the institution of private property existed among 

 them, because, on the one hand, all the citizens paid the 

 tax, except the Druids, and, on the other, the latter were 



M. Varronis quarto decimo Reriim D'nnnarum ; quo in loco Varro, 

 quum de petorrito dixisset, esse id verbum Gallicum dixit ' (Aulus Gel- 

 lius, XV. 30.) — 'Petoritum at Gallicum vehiculum est, et nomen ejus 

 dictum esse existimant a numero quatuor rotarum. Alii Osce, quod 

 hie quoque petora quatuor vocent. Alii Graece sed (uoKikwq dictum.' 

 (Festus, voc. Petoritum, p. 206, edit. Miiller.) — ' Belgica esseda, Gal- 

 licana vehiculae. Nam Belga civitas est Galliae in qua hujusmodi 

 vehiculi repertus est usus.' (Servius, Commentaries on the Georgics of 

 Virgil, lib. iii. v. 204.) 



