I] OF STORING APPLES 113 



fully arranged? Though we must assuredly not do 

 as some have done — bring to the country fruit 

 bought at Rome,^ in order to turn a storeroom into 

 a banqueting-hall. 

 3 Some people think that apples keep well enough 

 in a storehouse when placed on shelves or a plaster 

 floor; others prefer to have straw under them or 

 even flocks of wool. Pomegranates keep well, it is 

 said, if their branches are stuck into a cask full of 

 sand; the greater and less quince^ on hanging 

 mats of reeds,^ while, on the other hand, the ripe 

 Anician pears are best preserved in sapa. Some 

 consider that'* sorb apples" cut in pieces and dried in 

 the sun like pears keep well, and that this fruit can 

 be kept without difficulty just as it is wherever it is 

 put, provided the place be dry. Rape may be cut 

 up and kept in mustard-seed, walnuts in sand, 



' Romae coempta. VIctorius quotes in illustration part of 

 1 epigram, the author of which he does not name. 



Quaeque iibi posui tamquavi vemacula poma 

 De Sacra nulli dixeris esse via. 



l^on't tell anyone that my home-grown fruit was bought in 

 the Sacra Via.) 

 ' Mala cotonea, stnithea. Keil has not the comma, which 

 hould be there. Cf. note i, p. 112. 

 ^ In pensilibtcs iunclis. In despair I have translated iuncis 

 J of iunctis. Columella (x, 306) uses iuncus for a basket 

 - — of reeds. As the text stands one can only understand 

 ith pensilibtLSy surculisy and translate " on hanging branches 

 joined together." Pliny (N. H., xv, 17) says that quinces should 

 be shut up so that no breath of air may get to them ; or 

 hould be preserved in honey. 



I 



