BOOK XVII. iii. 39-iv. 42 



qualitA'. This is the kind of earth usuallv found in land 

 newlv jiloughed where an old forest has been felled, 

 earth that is unanimously spoken highly of. And in 

 the matter of bearing cereals the same eax-th is under- 

 stood to be more fertile the more often cultivation 

 has been suspended and it has lain fallow ; but this 

 is not done in the case of vineyards, and consequently 

 the greater care must be exercised in the selection of 

 their site, so as not to justify the opinion of those who 

 have formed the view that the land of Italy has by 

 this time been exhausted. In other kinds of soil, it is 

 true, ease of cultivation depends also on the weather, 

 and some land cannot be ploughed after rain, as owing 

 to excessive richness it becomes sticky ; but on the 

 other hand in the African district of Bvzacium, that 

 fertile phiin which yields an increase of one hundred 

 and fiftv fold, land which in dry weather no bulls can 

 plough, after a spell of rain we have seen being broken 

 bv a plough drawn by a wretched little donkey and an 

 old woman at the other end of the yoke. The plan of 

 impruving one soil by means of another, as some pre- 

 scribe, throwing a rich earth on the top of a poor one 

 or a Hght porous soil on one that is moist and too lush, 

 is an insane procedure : what can a man possibly 

 hope for who farms land of that sort ? 



IV'. There is another method, discovered by the vseofmarU 

 provinces of Britain and those of Gaul, the method ^'^ """"""*■ 

 of feeding the earth by means of itself, and the kind 

 of soil called marl : this is understood to contain a 

 more closely packed quality of richness and a kind of 

 earthy fatness, and growths corresponding to the 

 glands in the body, in which a kernel of fat solidifies. 

 This also has not been overlooked by the Greeks — 

 indeed what have they left untested ? They give the 



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