BOOK II. XX. 5-.\xi. I 



dilatory farmer, for often, while we are waiting, a 

 raging storm surprises us. Therefore the threshed 

 grain should be heaped on the threshing-floor in such 

 a way that it can be winnowed with any gentle wind. 

 But if the air is quiet in every quarter for many days, 

 the grain should be cleaned with winnowing-fans, for 

 fear that after excessive stillness of the winds a mighty 

 storm may bring to naught the toil of an entire year. 

 Then the pure grain, if it is being laid away for a ( 

 term of years, should be threshed again, for the better 

 it is scoured the less it is preyed upon by weevils ; 

 but if it is intended for immediate use, there is no need 

 of a second cleaning and it is sufficient that it be cooled 

 in the shade and so carried to the gi-anary. The 

 handling of legumes, too, differs not at all from that 

 of other grains, for they also are either consumed at 

 once or stored away. And this is the crowning reward 

 of the husbandman — reaping the harvest of the seed 

 that he has entrusted to the earth. 



XXI. But inasmuch as our ancestors saw fit to 

 render an account of their leisure hours as well as 

 of their times of non-leisure," I also believe that 

 farmers should be advised of what they should do on 

 holidays and what they should leave undone. For 

 here are things which, as the poet says, 



Divine and human laws let be performed on festive 



days : 

 No sacred law forbids to fetch the irrigating rills, 

 A hedge along the field to stretch, for birds a 



snare to lay. 

 And briars to burn, and bleating flocks to dip in 



wholesome stream.* 



" Cicero remarks {Pro Plancio, 27) that this was a dictum of 

 Cato in his Origines. " Vergil, Georg. I. 2G8-272. 



219 



