BOOK XVIII. XVIII. 78-xi.\. 8i 



XVIII. Barley meal is used as a medicine, and it MoredetoUs 

 is remarkable how in treating cattle pills made of it " "" "''^ 

 after it has becn hardened by roasting at the fire 



and afterwards ground, sent down into the animars 

 stomach by thc human hand, serve to increase the 

 strength and enlarge the muscles of the body. 

 Some ears of barlev have two rows of grains and 

 some more, up to as many as six. In the grain itself 

 there are some varieties: it is longer and smoother 

 or shorter and rounder, Hghter or darker in colour, 

 the kind with a purple shade being of a rich consis- 

 tency for porridge ; the Hght-coloured grain ofFers 

 the weakest resistance to storms. Barley is the 

 softest of all the grains. It Hkes to be sown only in a 

 drj^ loose soil, which must also be of rich quaHty. Its 

 chaff is one of thebest,indeed for straw there is none 

 that compares with it. Barley is the least Hable to 

 damage of aU corn, because it is harvested before the 

 wheat is attacked by mildew (and so wise farmers 

 only sow wheat for the larder, whereas barley is 

 sown bv the sack, as the saying is), and consequently 

 it brings in a return very quickly ; and the most 

 proHfic kind is the barley harvested at Carthage in 

 Spain in the month of April. In Celtiberia this 

 barley is sown in the same month, and there are two 

 crops in the same year. All barley is cut sooner 

 than any other grain, as soon as it first ripens, because 

 the grain is carried on a brittle straw and contained 

 in a very thin chaff. Moreover we are told that it 

 makes better pearl-barley if it is Hfted before its 

 ripening has been completed. 



XIX. \'arieties of wheat are not the same every- VarUUesoj 

 where, and where they are the same they do not Inim«-. 

 always bear the same names. The most widely 



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