34 VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



common, proper, or mixed. It is used as a common 

 noun when we speak of the land of the terrestrial 

 globe, the land of Italy or any other country, for in 

 the term so used are comprised stone, sand, and 

 other things of that kind. The word is taken in its 

 '* proper " sense when one speaks of land absolutely 

 without the addition of any other word or qualifica- 



2 tion ; and finally it has the mixed sense when we 

 describe agricultural land as clayey, stony, etc., 

 for in this sense there are as many kinds denoted as 

 by the common noun, and this owing to the fact 

 that the whole comprises various substances. For 

 in fact land taken in this sense, as it is of varying 

 strength and capability, is composed of very many 

 substances, amongst which I may mention stone, 

 marble, rubble, sand, coarse sand, clay, red earth, 

 dust, chalk, ash, burnt earth (land which is heated 

 intensely by the sun, to such a degree that it burns 



3 up the roots of the crops). ^ From these various 

 substances, that which goes by the general name 

 of ^' land," takes, when mixed with any of them, 

 the names "chalky," "gravelly," etc., land, ac- 

 cording to the type of soil which predominates in 

 it. And as these types vary, so do the classes into 

 which we divide land, though these classes admit 

 of more minute division, as each may be divided 



^ Cinis, carbunculus. Vitruvius (quoted by Schneider) says 

 that land scorched by the sun becomes in Campania cinis or 

 tufa — in Thuria carbunculus. Carbunculus in Pliny seems to 

 mean volcanic earth, or a disease in vines caused by excessive 

 heat (N. H., xvii, 24). 



