BOOK XVIII. xLiv. i54-\Lv. 157 



and in shut-in valleys that have no current of air 

 through theni, whereas \vindy plaees and high ground 

 on the contrary are free from it. Among the vices 

 of corn is also over-abundance, when the stalks fall 

 down under the burden of fertiUty. But a vice 

 common to all cultivated crops is caterpillars, which 

 even attack chick-pea when rain makes it taste 

 sweeter by washing away its saltness. 



There is a weed that kills off chick-pea and bitter 

 vetch bv binding itself round them,calledorobanche<*; 

 and in a similar way wheat is attacked by darnel, 

 barley by a long-stalked plant called aegilops and 

 lentils by an axe-leaved plant ^ which the Greeks call 

 axe-grass from its resemblance ; these also kill the 

 plants bv twining i'ound them. In the neighbour- 

 hood of Philippi <^ they give the name of ateramum 

 to a weed growing in rieh soil that kills the bean 

 plant, and the name teramum to one that has the same 

 effect in thin soil, when a particular wind has been 

 blowing on the beans when damp. Darnel has a very 

 '.mall seed enclosed in a prickly husk. When used in 

 bread it verv quickly causes fits of giddiness, and it 

 is said that in Asia and Greece when the managers 

 of baths want to get rid of a crowd they throw darnel 

 seed on to hot coals. Also the phalangium, a little 

 creature of the spider class, breeds in bitter vetoh, if 

 there is a wet winter. Slugs breed amongst vetch, and 

 somctimes small snails which are produced from the 

 ground and eat away the vetch in a surprising manner. 

 — These broadly speaking are the diseases of grain. 



XLV. Such cures of these diseases as pertain to proteetioni 

 grain in the blade are to be found in the hoe, and {^j*^f 

 when the seed is being sown, in ashes ; but \\\e dUeases, 

 diseases that occur in the seed and round the root can b^^^mice. 



287 



