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Boox I. AGRICULTURE OF THE ROMANS, 27 a compartments of Achilles’s shield.(Jd. lib. xviif. 550.) Reapers were set in bands on me the opposite side of the field or plat, and worked towards the centre. As the land was We ploughed in the same manner from the sides to the middle, there was an open furrow kiln left there, to which the reapers hastened in the way of competition. A, reaper was ex- feet pected to cut down a jugerum of wheat ina day and ahalf; barley, legumes, and medica Soe or clover, in one day, and flax in three days.; Ta 135. Threshing was performed in the area or threshing floor, a circular space of 40 to

8.) 60 feet in diameter, in the open air, with a smooth hard surface. The floor was generally : made of well wrought clay mixed with amurca or the lees of oil; sometimes it was

oned ie: ato paved. It was generally placed near the nubilariwm or barn, in order that when a ‘SS 0=,:;=°‘ ca sudden shower happened, during the process of threshing, the ears might be carried in ess,: ne=:: tt there out of the ra‘n. Sometimes also the ears or unthreshed corn of the whole farm has 2 2 3- were first put in this barn and carried out to the area afterwards. Varro and Columella y use. A.:: Selha s ‘hey recommended that the situation of the area should be high and airy, and within sight of _XVil,‘ orn::: + di the farmer or bailiff’s house, to prevent fraud; distant from gardens and orchards, dis- ae g Wh. because, though dung and straw are beneficial to the roots of vegetables, they are de- her"; A= 6: “ structive when they fall on their leaves.”(Var. lib, i. cap. 51.) rough ib.* 136. The corn being spread over the area a foot or two sailie in thickness, was threshed or beaten out by the hoofs of cattle, or horses driven round it, by their dragging nd, as a machine.‘The machine, Varro informs us, was ae“made of a board, rough with stones or iron, with a ns and driver or great weight placed on it.”” A machine com-= FZ Is; the posed of rollers studded with iron knobs, and furnished PEDERI 46 with a seat for tue driver,(fig. 17.) was used in the 3 Z Oe, Carthaginian territory. Sometimes also they threshed n than with rods or fails: far or Indian corn,(Zea Mays, L.);: cutting was generally hand picked, or passed through a A SS i handmill.— curved; SM ae ‘ 137. Corn was cleansed or winnowed by throwing it from one part of the floor to another, part or Pak:

(in the wind when there was any,) with a kind of shovel called ventilarium; another im-~- plement, called a van, probably a kind of sieve, was used when there was no wind. After being dressed, the corn was laid in the granary, and the straw either laid aside for litter,

le, with ras, and

ae or, what is not a little remarkable,“ sprinkled with brine; then, when dried, roiled up in w 1s cut bundles, and so given to the oxen for hay.”(Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. xviii. cap. 30.)

nd after 138. Hoy-making among the Romans was performed much in the same way as in off, they modern times,‘Lhe meadows were mown when the flowers of the grass began to fade; ap. 21.)«as it dries,” says Varro,‘it is turned with forks; it is then tied up in bundles of four

ally that pounds each, and carried home, and what is left strewed upon the meadow is raked

s great a together, and added to the crop.”“* A good mower,” Columella informs us,‘cuts a ye added jugerum of meadow, and binds twelve hundred bundles of hay.” It is probable that this

quantity, which is nearly two tons, was the produce per acre of a good crop. A second crop was cut, called cordum, and was chietly used for feeding sheep in winter. Hay was also made of leafy twigs for the same purpose. Cato directs the bailiff to“cut down poplar, elm, and oak spray, and put them up in time, not over dry, for fodder to the sheep.”(Cap. 5.)

139. Weeding and stirring the soil were performed, the first by cutting with a hook, or pulling the weeds up with the hand; and the second by sarcling or hoeing. Beans were hoed three times, and corn twice; the first time they were earthed up, but not the second or third;“for,” says Columella,‘‘when the corn ceases to tiller, it rots if covered with earth.” Lupines were not sarcled at all,‘ because so far from being infested witb weeds, they destroy them.”” Horse hoeing was also practised, the origin of which is thus given by Pliny.‘‘ We must not omit,” says he,“a particular method of ploughing, at this time practised in Italy beyond the Po, and introduced by the injuries of war. The Salassi, when they ravaged the lands lying under the Alps, tried likewise to destroy the panic and millet that had just come above ground: finding that the situation of the crop prevented them from destroying it in the ordinary way, they ploughed the fields; but the crop at harvest being double of what it used to be, taught the farmer to plough

on this ma- amongst the corn.”’‘This operation, he informs us, was performed, either when the stalk | heaped up was beginning to appear, or when the plant had put forth two or three leaves. The Ces corn being generally sown in drills, or covered with the plough, so as to come up in scessity for rows, readily admitted this practice. ig given by 140. Pasturing and harrowing corn, when too luxuriant, were practised. Virgil says, ‘«* What commendation shall I give to him, who, lest his corn should lodge, pastures it ern cli- while young, as soon as the blade equals the furrow.”*(Geor. i.],111.) Pliny directs or if the to comb the corn with a harrow before it is pastured, and sarcle it afterwards. gyptians, 141. Watering ona large scale was applied both to arable and grass lands. Virgil advises reated, 2S to“bring down the waters of a river upon the sown corn, and when the field is parched, iream, in and the plants drying, convey it from the brow of a hill in channels.”—(Geor. 1plelOG.) ne of the Pliny mentions the practice, and observes that the water destroys the weeds, nourishes