458 
pliny's katural histoey. 
[Book XYII. 
Bon of their prolific soil, we have seen the manure passed 
through a sieve like so much flour, and perfectly devoid, 
through lapse of time,^ of all bad smell or repulsive look, 
being changed in its appearance to something rather agreeable 
than otherwise. In more recent times it has been found that 
the olive thrives more particularly in soil that has been ma- 
nured with the ashes^ of the lime-kiln. To the ancient rules 
Yarro^ has added, that corn land should be manured with horse- 
dung, that being the lightest manure of all, while meadow 
land, he says, thrives better with a manure of a more heavy 
nature, and supplied by beasts that have been fed upon barley ; 
this last tending more particularly to the better growth of 
grass.* Some persons, indeed, prefer the dung of the beasts 
of burden to that of oxen even, the manure of the sheep to 
that of the goat, and the manure of the ass to all others, the 
reason being that that animal masticates the most slowly of 
them all. Experience, however, has pronounced against these 
dicta of Yarro and Columella ; but it is universally agreed by 
all writers that there is nothing more beneficial than to turn^ 
up a crop of lupines, before they have podded, with either the 
plough or the fork, or else to cut them and bury them in 
heaps at the roots of trees and vines. It is thought, also, 
that in places where no cattle are kept, it is advantageous to 
manure the earth with stubble or even fern. " You can make 
manure," Cato^ says, of litter, or else of lupines, straw, 
beanstalks, or the leaves of the holm-oak and quercus. Pull 
up the wallwort from among the crops of corn, as also the 
hemlock that grows there, together with the thick grass and 
sedge that you find growing about the willow- plots ; of all this, 
mixed with rotten leaves,*^ you may make a litter for sheep and 
1 In lapse of time, if exposed to the air, it is reduced to the state of 
humus or mould. 
2 Consisting of lime mixed with vegetable ashes. 
3 De Ee Eust. i. 38. 
* Herbas." This would appear to mean grass only here ; though 
Fee seems to think that it means various kinds of herbs. 
^ This method is sometimes adopted in England with buckwheat, trefoil, 
peas, and other leguminous plants ; and in the south of France lupines are 
still extensively used in the same manner, after the usage of the ancient 
Eomans here described. The French also employ, but more rarely, for 
the same purpose, the large turnip, vetches, peas, trefoil, Windsor beans, 
sanfoin, lucerne, &c. ; but it is found a very expensive practice, 
6 De Ee Eust. 37. 
7 Frondam putidam." Fee thinks that this expression is used in 
