6 VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



its natural divisions. My observations will be 

 drawn from a threefold source ; from personal ex- 

 perience on my own farms, from my own reading, 

 and from what I have heard from experts. 



CHAPTER II 



THE AIM AND SCOPE OF AGRICULTURE 



I At the Sementivae (Festival of Sowing) ' I was 

 in the temple of Tellus, on the invitation of the 

 Aeditumus (guardian of the temple), as our ances- 

 tors taught us to call him, though now our modern 

 men-about-town correct us, and would have us say 

 Aedituus,'^ There I fell in with Caius Fundanius, 

 my father-in-law, C. Agrius, a Roman eques of the 

 Socratic school, and P. Agrasius the tax-farmer. 

 They were looking at a map of Italy traced on the 

 wall. What are you doing here? I said to them, 

 surely the '' Sementivae " haven't brought you 

 gentlemen of leisure here as they used to do our 

 fathers and grandfathers ! 



^ Sementivae feriae. A village festival which took place 

 after the seed had been sown. Its date was announced by the 

 Pontifices. Sacrifice was made to Ceres and Tellus, and 

 prayers were offered for a good harvest (cf. Ovid, Fasti, I, 658). 



^ Aeditumus, the correct form, for which compare finitimus, 

 legitimus, etc. The form Aedituus rests on a false derivation 

 from aedes and tueri. 



