3o8 VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



the ground, they break their necks.' For this part 

 of them is very weak, as the head is soft. If you 

 have not this kind of grass, give them barley or 

 some other grain. When there is green fodder you 

 should give it in the manner prescribed for seris. 



6 If they are sitting let them have barley steeped in 

 water. The goslings just hatched are served for two 

 days with barley meal or barley, for the next three 

 with cress chopped up fine and mixed with water 

 and then put into some kind of vessel. And when 

 they have been shut up in their pens or under-ground 

 chambers — twenty together, as I said — they are given 

 barley meal or green fodder or some tender grass 



7 chopped up. For fattening, goslings are chosen 

 about six months^ old. They are shut up in the 

 fattening house, where their food is barley meal 

 and fine flour ' steeped in water, of which they have 



^ Ahrumpunt collum. This statement is repeated by Colu- 

 mella (viii, 14, 8) and by Pliny (x, 59) and the conclusion is not 

 unnatural, for a goose when struggling with a tough root 

 certainly looks as though It would break its neck ! 



^ Sesquimensem. As the reading of the Archetype was cir- 

 citer sex qui mense qui sunt nata, and as no one would think 

 of fattening goslings of \^ months old, Keil's emendation, 

 ciixiter sex menses qui sunt nati, seems fairly certain, despite 

 the fact that Columella (viii, 14, 10) gives four months as the 

 best age at which to begin fattening. 



^ Pollinem. Csito {i^^y, ())h3iS pollifiem polentae. Pollen was 

 the fine dust produced as the grain was ground. Cf. Colu- 

 mella (viii, 14, 11): "These birds are easy to fatten, for 

 they need nothing but barley meal and fine flour three times 

 a day provided always that they have plenty to drink and 

 are not allowed to stray," and the Geoponica (xiv, 22): 



