BOOK XV^III. Lxx. 2g4-Lx.\ii. 297 



if, at the setting of the Lyrc, which marks the begin- 

 ning of aiitiunn, a picture of a bunch of grapes is 

 phiced aniong the vines as a votive offering. Archi- 

 bius in his letter to Antiochus, king of Syria, says that 

 if a toad is buried in a new earthenware jar in the 

 middle of a corn-field, the crop will not be damaged 

 by storms. 



LXXI. The following are the rural operations Ovemtioni 

 belonging to this interval : to turn up the ground %mmer. 

 again, to dig round the trees, or to bank them up 

 where a hot locality calls for it — except in a very 

 rich soil crops just budding must not be dug — , to 

 clean seed-plots with the hoe, to harvest barley, to 

 prepare the threshing-floor for the harvest, in Cato's oxxix. 

 opinion by dressing it with oHve-lees, and in VirgiFs 

 with chalk, a more laborious method. But for the Georg. 1. 

 most part people only level it and smear it with a ^^**' 

 rather weak solution of cow-dung ; this appears to be 

 enough to prevent dust. 



LXXII. There are various methods of actunWy Meiiwds 0/ 

 getting in the hai-vest. On the vast estates in tfie ''«'"'""""^- 

 provinces of Gaul very large frames fitted with teeth 

 at the edge and carried on two wheels are driven 

 through the corn by a team of oxen pushing from 

 bchind ; the ears thus torn off" fall into the frame. 

 l*lls('where the stalks are cut through with a sickle 

 and the ear is stripped off between two pitchforks. 

 In some places the stalks are cut ofF at the root, in 

 others they are plucked up with the root ; and those 

 who use the latter method explain that in the course 

 of it they get the land broken, although really they 

 are drawing the goodness out of it. There are also 

 these differences : where they thatch the houses with 

 straw, they keep it as long as pos^iblc, but where 



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