BOOK II. X. 9-12 



and not many pods. And so I hear the old-time 

 farmers commonly remark that they would rather 

 have the bean straw of the early sowing than the 

 beans of the three-months variety. But, whatever 10 

 the season of sowing, we must take care that the 

 quantity allotted for seed be broadcast on the 

 fifteenth day of the moon, provided only she does 

 not on that day traverse the rays of the sun — what the 

 Greeks call diroKpovaL^ or "waning"; otherwise 

 that it be sown in any case on the fourteenth day, 

 while the light of the moon is still waxing, even 

 though the whole amount of seed cannot be covered 

 immediately. For no harm will come to it from 

 nightly dews or other causes, if only it be protected 

 from cattle and birds. The ancient husbandmen, 11 

 moreover, and Vergil too, held that it should first be 

 soaked in oil lees or in nitre, and then sown. 



That the deceptive pods might have a larger fruit, 

 Then* seeds soon softened by even a little heat." 



We, too, have learned that seed so treated is less 

 infested by weevils after it has reached maturity. 

 And what we are about to say next, we offer as a 

 precept from OAvn experience : Gather beans 12 

 in the dark of the moon,** before dawn ; and when 

 they have dried on the threshing-floor, immediately, 

 before the moon begins its waxing, beat them out, 

 cool them, and carry them into the granary. When 

 stored in this way they will not be harmed by weevils. 

 And this one, especially, of the legumes, can be very 

 easily threshed without the use of cattle, and cleaned 



tion with this and much of the moon lore that follows, see 

 Eugene Tavenner, " The Roman Farmer and the Moon," 

 Trans. Am. Phil. Assn. XLIX. 67-82. 



163 



