BOOK X^'III. xLvii. i69-.\Lviii. 173 



them. However the harvest is completed in May, 

 and the straw is never more than an ell long, as the 

 subsoil is sand and the corn only gets its support 

 from the mud. The district of the Thcbaid has corn 

 of better quality, because Egypt is marsliy. Se- 

 leucia in Babylon has a similar method but greater 

 fertihty, owing to the overflow of the Euphrates and 

 the Tigris, as there the amount of flooding is con- 

 trollcd by thc hand of man. Syria also ploughs with 

 a narrow furrow, whereas in Italv in many parts 

 eight oxen strain panting at one ploughshare. In 

 every department of agriculture but most of all in 

 this one the greatest vahie attaches to the oracular 

 precept : ' what the particular district will stand.' 



XLVIII. Ploughshares are of several kinds. The PiovgMoj 

 coulter is the name for the part fixed in front of the p"^f,. 

 share-beam, cutting the earth before it is broken up 

 and marking out the tracks for the future furrows 

 with incisions which tlie share sloping backwai-d is 

 to bite out in the process of ploughing. Another 

 kind is the ordinary share consisting of a lever with 

 a pointed beak, and a third kind used in easy soil 

 does not present an edge akmg the whole of the 

 share-beam but only has a small spike at the ex- 

 tremity. In a fourth kind of ploiigh tliis spike is 

 broader and sharper, ending off in a point, and using 

 the same blade both to cleave the soil and with the 

 sharp edge of tlie sides to cut the roots of the weeds. 

 An invention was made not lonsr a<;o in the Grisons 

 fitting a plough of this sort with two small wheels — 

 the name in the vernacular for this kind of plough is 

 plaumorati ; the share has thc shape of a spade. 

 This method i'; only used for sowing in cultivated 

 land and land that is nearly fallow ; the breadth of 



297 



