I] ON CROPS 63 



CHAPTER XXIII 



ON CROPS 



I Agrasius went on; Since we now have discussed 

 the first two sections of our four-fold division, that, 

 namely (i) which concerns the farm itself, and (2) 



! the instruments of its cultivation, I am now waiting 

 for the third section. 



Well, answered Scrofa, as I conceive the pro- 

 duce of the farm to mean useful products sown 

 nd grown on it, two matters remain for considera- 

 m — what are the best things to sow, and which 

 e the best places to sow them in. For one soil is 

 .T»aitable for grass, another for corn, another for wine 

 or for oil. The same may be said of crops which 

 serve as fodder, which includes ocimum,^ mixed 

 grain (cut when green), vetch, lucerne, clover 

 (snail-clover) and lupins. For it is not everything 

 that can properly be sown on rich land, nor is 

 nothing to be sown on poor land, for it is better to 

 plant crops that do not need much nutriment on the 

 thinner soil; such are clover and all leguminous 

 plants with the exception of chick peas — for they, 

 too, come under the heading of leguminous plants, 

 being plucked from the ground, not cut. And these 

 plants are called legumina, because leguntur — they 



' arc plucked. In rich land it is better to sow what 



' Ocimum, farrafro. For Varro's definition of these words, 

 cf. cap. xxxi, %% 4 and 5, of this book. 



