no VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



"'* floor must be coated with a marble cement^ — failing 



2 that with clay mixed with corn chaff and amurca. 

 As^ the latter keeps away mice and worms, and 

 renders the grains of corn firmer and stronger, 

 some people sprinkle the corn itself with it, add- 

 ing about a quadrantal (seven gallons) to the 

 thousand pecks. Different people, too, grate or 

 sprinkle different substances on it, for example, 

 Chalcidian or Carian chalk, or wormwood and the 

 like. 



3 Some people use as granaries underground caves, ' 

 called siros^ as is done in Cappadocia and Thrace, 

 others wells, as in Hither Spain, and also in the 

 Carthaginian and Oscan country. On the floor of 

 these they spread straw, and are careful to prevent 

 moisture or air from getting in, except when the 

 corn is brought out for consumption. For where no 

 air penetrates, there the weevil does not appear. 



iCorn thus stored keeps for even fifty years, millet 



Jfor more than a hundred. 



Some people build granaries on the farm raised 

 high above ground, in Hither Spain and Africa for 

 instance, so constructed that the wind may cool 



' Marmorato. Cement made of powdered white marble {opus 

 alharium) was frequently used as a finishing coat for the inside 

 walls of houses, etc. It was almost as hard as native marble. 

 Pictures were often painted on it. 



"^ Quod mure7n. Keil's punctuation here seems bad. The 

 sense is much Improved If a full stop Is placed after amurca, 

 and a comma Instead of a full stop after firmiora — and so I 

 have translated. 



