BOOK II. XXI. 4-6 



Anything that you may do in your garden for the good 

 of your vegetables is lawful. It is not lawful to bury 

 a dead person on public feast days. Marcus Porcius 

 Cato says that there are no holidays for mules, 

 horses, and asses ; " the same authority permits the 

 yoking of oxen for the purpose of hauling wood and 

 grain. We ourselves have read in the books of the 

 pontiffs that only on the holidays called Denicales^ 

 is it imlawful to have mules in harness, but on other 

 holidays it is lawful. 



I am well aware that at this point, after my survey 

 of the observances of feast days, some people will 

 miss the customs observed by the ancients in the 

 matter of purificatory ceremonies and other offerings 

 which are made for the good of the crops. <^ And I 

 am not declining the task of offering this instruction, 

 but am postponing it for that book <^ which I intend 

 to put together after I have written precepts on the 

 whole science of agriculture. Meanwhile I shall 

 bring the present discussion to an end, having in 

 mind to tell in the next book what ancient authori- 

 ties have handed down on the subject of vineyards 

 and of tree-plantations, and what I myself have since 

 discovered. 



Privataeferiae vocanlur sacrorum propriorum, velut dies natales, 

 operationis, denecales. See also Cicero, De Leg. 2. 55, and 

 Cincius ap. Gellius XVI. 4. 4. 



« Cf. Cato 141 ; Vergil, Georg. I. 338 f. 



<* This proposed volume, if ever written, has been lost. 



223 

 I 



