290 VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



poultry includes fowls of three kinds — barn-door, 

 2 wild, and African. Barn-door^ fowls are those 

 which are commonly kept at farmhouses in the 

 country. With regard to these, he who means to 

 set up a poultry-farm — with the object, that is, of 

 making large profits by the application of skill and 

 diligence, as the Delians^ in particular have ever 

 done — must give heed to these five points: (i) buy- 

 ing: the kind and number to be bought; (2) breed- 

 ing: the conditions to be observed for mating and 

 laying; (3) eggs: the sitting and bringing off; 

 (4) chickens: the method of rearing and the birds 



Omnia denique quae postea vidimus. Si rede ratiocinabimur, 

 uni accepta referemus Antonio. The passage in the text might 

 perhaps run : " If there is any useful calculation to be made 

 about the other branches we can then make it " — with a hit at 

 the commercial spirit of Axius. 



^ Gallinae villaticae. Cf. Columella (viii, 2, 2) : Cohortalis 

 est avis quae vulgo per omnes fere villas coTispicitur. Deinceps 

 in the next line is unintelligible, and I am inclined to think 

 that it has strayed from the passage three lines higher : Turn 

 de reliquis. Siquid, etc. , the sense of which would be improved 

 by the insertion of deinceps after reliquis. 



^ Deliaci. Cf. Columella (viii, 2, 4) : Huius igitur villatici 

 generis non spernendus est reditus si adhibeatur educandi 

 scientia quam plerique Graecorum et praecipue celebravere 

 Deliaci. He goes on to say, however, that the Delians bred 

 principally fighting-cocks (Tanagrian, Rhodian, Chalcidic, 

 and Median), and that he prefers the native Italian breed (of 

 which he gives a detailed description) ''as a source of revenue 

 for the hard-working pater familias. " He strongly disapproves 

 of cock-fighting, "as often a man's whole patrimony is staked 

 on a match and is carried oif by the victorious boxer {pyctes).^^ 

 Cf. Pliny (x, 50) : Gallinas saginare Deliaci coepere. 



