BOOK XVII. III. 32-36 



information as to the good points ; and accordingly 

 \ve viiW first speak about soil defects. 



A bitter soil is indicated by its black undergrown Varieiieso/ 

 plants ; shrivelled shoots indicate a cold soil, and 

 drooping growths show a damp soil ; red earth and 

 damp clay are noted by the eye — they are very 

 difficult to work, and Hable to burden the rakes or 

 ploughshares with huge clods — although what is an 

 obstacle to working the soil is not also a handicap to 

 its productivity : and similarly the eye can discern the 

 opposite, an ash-coloured soil and a white sand ; while 

 a barren soil with its hard surface is easily detected 

 by even a single stroke of a prong. Cato " defines 

 defects of soil briefly and in his customary style : 

 ' Take care when the soil is rotten not to dent it 

 either with a waggon or bv driving cattle over it '. 

 VVhat do we infer from this designation to have been 

 the thing that so much alarmed him that he almost 

 prohibits even setting foot on it ? Lct us compare it 

 with rottenness in wood, and we shall find that the 

 faults of soil which he hokls in such aversion consist in 

 being dry, porous, rough, white, full of holes and 

 Hke pumice-stone. He has said more by one striking 

 word than could be fully recounted by any quantity 

 of talk. For some soil exists which analysis of its 

 vices shows to be not old in age, a term which 

 conveys no meaning in the case of earth, but old in its 

 own nature, and consequently infertile and powerless 

 for everv purpose. The same authoritv ^ gives the 

 view that the best land is that extending in a level 

 plain from the base of a mountain range in a southerly 

 direction, this being the conformation of the whole of 

 Italy, and that the soil called ' dark ' is ' tender '; 

 consequently this will be the best land both for 



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