Chapter 532

304See B. xiii. c. 47.

305Columella, B. ii. c. 11, says April.

306By the aid of careful watering, as many as eight to fourteen cuttings are obtained in the year, in Italy and Spain. In the north of Europe there is but one crop.

307In B. xiii. c. 47.

308He borrows this notion of the oat being wheat in a diseased state, from Theophrastus. Singularly enough, it was adopted by the learned Buffon.

309From Theophrastus, Hist. Plant. B. viii. c. 10.

310This but rarely happens in our climates, as Fée remarks.

311The grains are sometimes, though rarely, found devoured on the stalk, by a kind of larvæ.

312Some coleopterous insect, probably, now unknown, and not the Cantharis vesicatoria, or “Spanish fly,” as some have imagined. Dioscorides and Athenæus state to the same effect as Pliny.

313The proper influence of the humidity of the earth would naturally be impeded by a coating of these substances.

314This plant has not been identified; but none of the gramineous plants are noxious to cattle, with the exception of the seed of darnel.

315Lolium temulentum of Linnæus.

316See B. xxi. c. 58.

317“Carduus.” A general term, probably including the genera Centaurea (the prickly kinds), Serratula, Carduus, and Cnicus. The Centaurea solstitialis is the thistle most commonly found in the south of Europe.

318Gallium Aparine of Linnæus.

319Barley, wheat, oats, and millet have, each its own “rubigo” or mildew, known to modern botany as uredo.

320The Erineum vitis of botanists.

321This rarely happens except through the violence of wind or rain.

322See c.32of this Book.

323The Cuscuta Europæa, probably, of Linnæus; one of the Convolvuli.

324“Æra.” It is generally considered to be the same with darnel, though Pliny probably looked upon them as different.

325The Ægilops ovata, probably, of Linnæus. Dalechamps and Hardouin identify it with the barren oat, the Avena sterilis of Linnæus.

326To the Greekπελέκυς, or battle-axe. It is probably the Biserrula pelecina of Linnæus, though the Astragalus hamosus and the Coronilla securidaca of Linnæus have been suggested.

327Pliny has here committed a singular error in translating from Theophrastus, de Causis, B. iv. c. 14, who only says that a cold wind in the vicinity of Philippi makes the beans difficult to cook or boil,ἀτεράμονες. From this word he has coined two imaginary plants, the “ateramon,” and the “teramon.” Hardouin defends Pliny, by suggesting that he has borrowed the passage from another source, while Fée doubts if he really understood the Greek language.

328More probably one of the Coleoptera. He borrows from Theophrastus, Hist. Anim. B. viii. c. 10.

329This will only prevent the young plants from becoming a prey to snails and slugs.

330This plan is attended with no good results.

331Georg. i. 193. It is generally said that if seed is steeped in a solution of nitre, and more particularly hydrochloric acid, it will germinate with accelerated rapidity; the produce, however, is no finer than at other times.

332“Fractæ.” Perhaps, more properly “crushed”

333The odour of cypress, or savin, Fée thinks, might possibly keep away noxious insects.

334The “always living,” or perennial plant, our “house-leek,” the Sedum acre of Linnæus. See B. xxv. c. 102.

335“Little finger,” from the shape of the leaves.

336He must have allowed himself to be imposed upon in this case.

337Fée thinks that this may possibly be efficacious against the attacks of rats, as the author of the Geoponica, B. x., states.

338Virgil, Georg, i. 111, recommends the same plan, and it is still followed by agriculturists. It is not without its inconveniences, however.

339This is not consistent with truth, for no fresh ear will assume its place.

340De Re Rust. c. 6.

341De Re Rust. c. 34.

342“Ador.” See c.10of this Book.

343From Varro; De Re Rust. i. 23.

344A.U.C.553.

345There is nothing wonderful in a few grains of corn germinating in the cleft of a tree.

346In B. v. c. 10.

347First of April.

348I. e.Egypt Proper, the Delta, or Lower Egypt, Thebais being in Upper Egypt.

349The overflow of these rivers is by no means to be compared with that of the Nile.

350Fée remarks, that the plough here described differs but little from that used in some provinces of France.

351Resupinus.

352Gallia Togata. Rhætia is the modern country of the Grisons.

353According to Goropius Becanus, fromplograt, the ancient Gallic for a plough-wheel. Hardouin thinks that it is from the Latin “plaustra rati;” and Poinsinet derives it from the Belgicploum, a plough, andrat, orradt, a wheel.

354“Crates;” probably made of hurdles; see Virgil, Georg. i. 95.

355De Re Rust. c. 61.

356These rules are borrowed mostly from Varro, B. i. c. 19, and Columella, B. ii. c. 4.

357“Vere actum” “worked in spring.”

358Virgil says the same, Georg. i. 9.

359Crosswise, or horizontally.

360Zig-zag, apparently.

361A rude foreshadowing of the spade husbandry so highly spoken of at the present day.

362“Prevaricare,” “to make a balk,” as we call it, to make a tortuous furrow, diverging from the straight line.

363He probably means the heavy “rastrum,” or rake, mentioned by Virgil, Georg. i. 164. It is impossible to say what was the shape of this heavy rake, or how it was used. Light, or hand rakes were in common use as well.

364“A gong crooked;” hence its meaning of, folly, dotage, or madness.

365Georg. i. 47. Servius seems to understand it that the furrow should be untouched for two days and two nights before it is gone over again.

366Fée declines to give credit to this story.

367A.U.C.830.

368“Semen,” “seed-wheat,” a variety only of spelt.

369In c. 65 of this Book.

370Runcatio.

371Crates.

372Georg. i. 71.

373In B. xvii. c. 7.

374See B. v. c. 3, and B. xvi. c. 50. It is also mentioned by Ptolemy and Procopius. It was situate evidently in an oasis.

375Or arm’s length from the elbow.

376He surely does not mention this as an extravagant price, more especially when he has so recently spoken (in c. 34) of rape selling at a sesterce per pound.

377How was this ascertained? Fée seems to think that it is the Festuca fluitans of Linnæus that is alluded to, it being eagerly sought by cattle.

378In B. xvii. c. 3.

379Tenerum.

380Adoreum.

381“Tertio” may possibly mean the “third time,”i. e.for every third crop.

382In B. xvii. c. 6.

383“Ares” seems to be a preferable reading to “arescat,” “before it dries.”

384Schneider, upon Columella, B. ii. c. 15, would reject these words, and they certainly appear out of place.

385Poinsinet would supply here “tricenis diebus,” “in thirty days,” from Columella, B. ii. c. 15.

386“Sterile.” This is not necessarily the case, as we know with reference to what is called mummy wheat, the seed of which has been recovered at different times from the Egyptian tombs.

387The threshing floor was made with an elevation in the middle, and the sides on an incline, to the bottom of which the largest grains would be the most likely to fall.

388“Far” or spelt is of a red hue in the exterior.

389This appearance is no longer to be observed, if, indeed, Pliny is correct: all kinds of corn are white in the interior of the grain.

390Hand-sowing is called by the French, “semer à la volée.”

391This occult or mysterious method of which Pliny speaks, consists solely of what we should call a “happy knack,” which some men have of sowing more evenly than others.

392Sors genialis atque fecunda est.

393This Chapter is mostly from Columella, B. ii. c. 9.

394In c. 19 of this Book.

395Probably the mixture called “farrago” in c. 10 and c. 41.

396Upon this point the modern agriculturists are by no means agreed.

397From Cato, De Re Rust. c. 5.

398“Segetem ne defrudes.” The former editions mostly read “defruges,” in which case the meaning would be, “don’t exhaust the land.”

399This passage of Attius is lost, but Hermann supposes his words to have run thus:———serere, cum estLuna in Ariete, Geminis, Leone, Libra, Aquario.

399This passage of Attius is lost, but Hermann supposes his words to have run thus:—

——serere, cum estLuna in Ariete, Geminis, Leone, Libra, Aquario.

——serere, cum est

Luna in Ariete, Geminis, Leone, Libra, Aquario.

400In c. 8 of this Book.

401Georg. i. 208.

402Georg. i. 227.

403See c.74of this Book.

404Columella, B. ii. c. 8.

405Favonius. See B. ii. c. 47.

406The five days’ festival in honour of Minerva. It begins on the fourteenth before the calends of April, or on the nineteenth of March. Virgil, Georg. i. 208, says that flax and the poppy should be sown in autumn.

407Fifteenth of October.

408First of November.

409Georg. i. 204.

410“To be an early winter.”

411“To be a long winter.”

412Confectum sidus.

413In B. xvii. c. 2.

414Georg. i. 335.

415A.U.C.830.

416Twenty-seventh of January.

417Ad solis cursum.

418Soon after the corrections made by order of Julius Cæsar, the Pontifices mistook the proper method of intercalation, by making it every third year instead of the fourth; the consequence of which was, that Augustus was obliged to correct the results of their error by omitting the intercalary day for twelve years.

419He most probably refers to the list of writers originally appended to the First Book; but which in the present Translation is distributed at the end of each Book. For the list of astronomical writers here referred to, see the end of thepresent Book.

420OrἈστρικὴ βίβλος. It is now lost.

421In his work mentioned at the end of this Book. It is now lost.

422I. e.Asia Minor.

423I. e.the north-west parts of Africa.

424See c. 39 of that Book.

425“Ratione solis.” This theory of the succession of changes every four years, was promulgated by Eudoxus. See B. ii. c. 48.

426See c.69, as to Arcturus and Aquila.

427He speaks of Equinoctial hours, these being in all cases of the same length, in contradistinction to the Temporal, or Unequal hours, which with the Romans were a twelfth part of the Natural day, from sunrise to sunset, and of course were continually varying.

428Twenty-fifth of December.

429Fere.

430In this Translation, the names of the Constellations are given in English, except in the case of the signs of the Zodiac, which are universally known by their Latin appellations.

431He begins in c. 64, at the winter solstice, and omits the period between the eleventh of November and the winter solstice altogether, so far as the mention of individual days.

432“Cum sidus vehemens Orionis iisdem diebus longo decedat spatio.” This passage is apparently unintelligible, if considered, as Sillig reads it, as dependent on the preceding one.

433In his Œconomica.

434In B. ii. c. 47.

435“Vestis institor est.” This passage is probably imperfect.

436“Lacernarum.”

437“Puleium.” See B. ii. c. 41.

438De Re Rust. i. 34.

439The setting of the Vergiliæ.

440De Divinat. B. i. c. 15. They are a translation from Aratus.

441De Re Rust. c. 38. Pliny has said above, that flax and the poppy should be sown in the spring.

442The Papaver Rhœas of Linnæus is still used for affections of the throat.

443For the grape and the olive.

444First of November.

445In the more northern climates this is never done till the spring.

446This is merely imaginary.

447Or king-fisher. It was a general belief that this bird incubated on the surface of the ocean.

448Hence the expression, “Halcyon days.”

449Vadimonia.

450In B. xvi. c. 74.

451“Ridicas.”

452“Palos.”

453Thirtieth of December. According to the Roman reckoning, thethirdday would be the day but one before.

454Fourth of January.

455Eighth of January.

456Seventeenth of January.

457Twenty-fifth of January.

458“Regia Stella.”

459Fourth of February.

460Or wine-vats; by the use of the word “laminas,” he seems to be speaking not of the ordinary earthen dolia, but the wooden ones used in Gaul and the north of Italy.

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