BOOK XVIII. Li. 189-ui. 191 



A plot of soil thei-e measuring four cubits either way, 

 a cubit being measured not from the elbow to the 

 finger-tips but to thc closed fist, is sold for four 

 denarii. But the unique point is that there are two 

 vintages a year, the vines bearing twice over ; and 

 if fertility wcre not exhausted by multiplied pro- 

 duction, each crop would be killed by its own exuber- 

 ance, but as it is, something is being gathered all the 

 vear round, and yet it is an absohite fact that this 

 fertility receives no assistance from human beings. 



There is also a great difference of quahty in the VaHeties 0/ 

 water supplied to watered places. In the province of ""''*'• 

 Narbonne there is a celebrated spring with the name 

 of Orga, in which plants grow that are so much sought 

 after by oxen that they put their whole heads under 

 water in trying to get them ; but it is a well-known 

 fact that those plants though growing in Mater only 

 get their nutriment from showers of rain. Conse- 

 quentlv it is necessary for everybody to know the 

 nature of the soil and of the water in his own district. 



LII. If the land is of the kind which we designated xvii. 36. 

 ' tender ', after harvesting the barley it will be pos- cr'^^!'^ 

 sible to sow millet, and whcn that has been got in 

 turnip-seed, and when the millet and turnip have been 

 harvested barley again, or else wheat, as is done in 

 Campania ; and land of that nature is sufficiently 

 pkjughed by being hoed. Another order of rotation is 

 for ground where therc has been a crop of emmer 

 wheat to lie fallow during the four winter months and 

 to be given spring beans ; but it should not lie fallow 

 before bcing sown with winter-beans. With a soil 

 that is too rich it is possible to employ rotation, 

 sowing a leguminous crop at a third sowing after the 

 wheat ha^; bccn carried ; Vnit a tliin soil had better be 



309 



