Delphi Complete Works of Pliny the Elder

by Pliny the Elder

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  CHAP. 36. (14.)

  THE LUPINE.

  The lupine is the next among the leguminous plants that is in extensive use, as it serves for food for man in common with the hoofed quadrupeds. To prevent it from springing out of the pod while being gathered, and so lost, the best plan is to gather it immediately after a shower. Of all the seeds that are sown, there is not one of a more marvellous nature than this, or more favoured by the earth. First of all, it turns every day with the sun, and shows the hour to the husbandman, even though the weather should happen to be cloudy and overcast. It blossoms, too, no less than three times, and so attached is it to the earth, that it does not require to be covered with the soil; indeed, this is the only seed that does not require the earth to be turned up for sowing it. It thrives more particularly on a sandy, dry, and even gravelly soil; and requires no further care to be taken in its cultivation. To such a degree is it attached to the earth, that even though left upon a soil thickly covered with brambles, it will throw out a root amid the leaves and brakes, and so con- trive to reach the ground. We have already stated that the soil of a field or vineyard is enriched by the growth of a crop of lupines; indeed, so far is it from standing in need of manure, that the lupines will act upon it as well as the very best. It is the only seed that requires no outlay at all, so much so, in fact, that there is no necessity to carry it even to the spot where it is sown; for it may be sown the moment it is brought from the threshing-floor: and from the fact that it falls from the pod of its own accord, it stands in need of no one to scatter it.

  This is the very first grain sown and the last that is gathered, both operations generally taking place in the month of September; indeed, if this is not done before winter sets in, it is liable to receive injury from the cold. And then, besides, it may even be left with impunity to lie upon the ground, in case showers should not immediately ensue and cover it in, it being quite safe from the attacks of all animals, on account of its bitter taste: still, however, it is mostly covered up in a slight furrow. Among the thicker soils, it is attached to a red earth more particularly. In order to enrich this earth, it should be turned up just after the third blossom; but where the soil is sandy, after the second. Chalky and slimy soils are the only ones that it has an aversion to; indeed, it will never come to anything when sown in them. Soaked in warm water, it is used as a food, too, for man. One modius is a sufficient meal for an ox, and it is found to impart considerable vigour to cattle; placed, too, upon the abdomen of children, it acts as a remedy in certain cases. It is an excellent plan to season the lupine by smoking it; for when it is kept in a moist state, maggots are apt to attack the germ, and render it useless for reproduction. If cattle have eaten it off while in leaf, as a matter of necessity it should be ploughed in as soon as possible.

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  CHAP. 37. (15.)

  THE VETCH.

  The vetch, too, enriches the soil, and its cultivation en- tails no labour on the agriculturist. It is sown after the ground has been but once turned up, and requires neither hoe- ing nor manuring; nothing at all, indeed, except harrowing there are three periods for sowing it; the first is about the setting of Arcturus, when it is intended for feeding cattle in the month of December, while in the blade; this crop, too, is the best of all for seed, for, although grazed upon, it will bear just as well. The second crop is sown in the month of January, and the last in March; this last being the best crop for fodder. Of all the seeds this is the one that thrives best in a dry soil; still, however, it manifests no repugnance to a shaded locality. This grain, if gathered when quite ripe, produces a chaff superior to that of any other. If sown near vines supported by trees, the vetch will draw away the juices from the vines, and make them languid.

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  CHAP. 38.

  THE FITCH.

  The cultivation of the fitch, too, is attended with no difficulty. It requires weeding, however, more than the vetch. Like it, the fitch has certain medicinal properties; for we find the fact still kept in remembrance by some letters of his, that the late Emperor Augustus was cured by its agency. Five modii will sow as much ground as a yoke of oxen can plough in a day. If sown in the month of March, it is injurious, they say, to oxen: and when sown in autumn, it is apt to produce head-ache. If, however, it is put in the ground at the beginning of spring, it will be productive of no bad results.

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  CHAP. 39. (16.)

  SILICIA.

  Silicia, or, in other words, fenugreek, is sown after alight ploughing merely, the furrows being no more than some four fingers in depth; the less the pains that are bestowed upon it the better it will thrive — a singular fact that there should be anything that profits from neglect. The kinds, however, that are known as “secale” and “farrago” require harrowing only.

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  CHAP. 40.

  SECALE OR ASIA.

  The people of Taurinum, at the foot of the Alps, give to secale the name of “asia;” it is a very inferior grain, and is only employed to avert positive famine. It is prolific, but has a straw of remarkable thinness; it is also black and sombre-looking, but weighs extremely heavy. Spelt is mixed with this grain to modify its bitterness, and even then it is very disagreeable to the stomach. It will grow upon any soil, and yields a hundred-fold; it is employed also as a manure for enriching the land.

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  CHAP. 41.

  FARRAGO: THE CRACCA.

  Farrago, a mixture made of the refuse of “far,” or spelt, is sown very thick, the vetch being sometimes mingled with it; in Africa, this mixture is sometimes made with barley. All these mixtures, however, are only intended for cattle, and the same is the case with the cracca a degenerate kind of leguminous plant. Pigeons, it is said, are so remarkably fond of this grain, that they will never leave the place where it has been given to them.

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  CHAP. 42.

  OCINUM: ERVILIA.

  Among the ancients there was a sort of fodder, to which Cato gives the name of “ocinum;” it was employed by them to stop scouring in oxen. This was a mixture of various kinds of fodder, cut green before the frosts came on. Mamilius Sura, however, explains the term differently, and says that ten modii of beans, two of vetches, and the same quantity of ervilia, were mixed and sown in autumn on a jugerum of land. He states, also, that it is a still better plan to mix some Greek oats with it, the grain of which never falls to the ground; this mixture, according to him, was ocinum, and was usually sown as a food for oxen. Varro informs us that it received its name on account of the celerity with which it springs up, from the Greek ὠχέως, “quickly.”

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  CHAP. 43.

  LUCERNE.

  Lucerne is by nature an exotic to Greece even, it having been first introduced into that country from Media, at the time of the Persian wars with King Darius; still it deserves to be mentioned among the very first of these productions. So superior are its qualities, that a single sowing will last more than thirty years. It resembles trefoil in appearance, but the stalk and leaves are articulated. The longer it grows in the stalk, the narrower is the leaf. Amphilochus has devoted a whole book to this subject and the cytisus. The ground in which it is sown, being first cleaned and cleared of stones, is turned up in the autumn, after which it is ploughed and harrowed. It is then harrowed a second and a third time, at intervals of five days; after which manure is laid upon it. This seed requires either a soil that is dry, but full of nutriment, or else a well-watered one. After the ground has been thus pre- pared, the seed is put in the month of May; for if sown earlier, it is in danger from the frosts. It is necessary to sow the seed very thick, so that all the ground may be occupied, and no room left for weeds to shoot up in the intervals; a result which may be secured by sowing twenty modii to the jugerum. The seed must be stirred at once with th
e rake, to prevent the sun from scorching it, and it should be covered over with earth as speedily as possible. If the soil is naturally damp or weedy, the lucerne will be overpowered, and the spot degenerate into an ordinary pasture; it is necessary, therefore, directly the crop is an inch in height, to disengage it from all weeds, by hand, in preference to the weeding-hook.

  It is cut when it is just beginning to flower, and this is repeated as often as it throws out new blossoms; which happens mostly six times in the year, and four at the very least. Care should be taken to prevent it from running to seed, as it is much more valuable as fodder, up to the third year. It should be hoed in the spring, and cleared of all other plants; and in the third year the surface should be well worked with the weeding-hook. By adopting this method, the weeds will be effectually destroyed, though without detriment to the lucerne, in consequence of the depth of its roots. If the weeds should happen to get ahead of it, the only remedy is to turn it up repeatedly with the plough, until the roots of the weeds are thoroughly destroyed. This fodder should never be given to cattle to satiety, otherwise it may be necessary to let blood; it is best, too, when used while green. When dry, it becomes tough and ligneous, and falls away at last into a thin, useless dust. As to the cytisus, which also occupies the very foremost rank among the fodders, we have already spoken of it at sufficient length when describing the shrubs. It remains for us now to complete our account of all the cereals, and we shall here devote a portion of it to the diseases to which they are subject.

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  CHAP. 44. (17.)

  the DISEASES OF GRAIN: THE OAT.

  The foremost feature of disease in wheat is the oat. Barley, too, will degenerate into the oat; so much so, in fact, that tile oat has become an equivalent for corn; for the people of Germany are in the habit of sowing it, and make their porridge of nothing else. This degeneracy is owing more particularly to humidity of soil and climate; and a second cause is a weakness in the seed, the result of its being retained too long in the ground before it makes its appearance above it. The same, too, will be the consequence, if the seed is decayed when put in the ground. This may be known, however, the moment it makes its appearance, from which it is quite evident that the defect lies in the root. There is another form of disease, too, which closely resembles the oat, and which supervenes when the grain, already developed to its full size, but not ripe, is struck by a noxious blast, before it has acquired its proper body and strength; in this case, the seed pines away in the ear, by a kind of abortion, as it were, and totally disappears.

  The wind is injurious to wheat and barley, at three periods of the year in particular: when they are in blossom, directly the blossom has passed off, and just as the seed is beginning to ripen. In this last case, the grain wastes away, while in the two former ones it is prevented from being developed. Gleams of sunshine, every now and then, from the midst of clouds, are injurious to corn. Maggots, too, breed in the roots, when the rains that follow the seed-time are succeeded by a sudden heat, which encloses the humidity in the ground. Maggots make their appearance, also, in the grain, when the ear ferments through heat succeeding a fall of rain. There is a small beetle, too, known by the name of “cantharis,” which eats away the blade. All these insects die, however, as soon as their nutriment fails them. Oil, pitch, and grease are pre- judicial to grain, and care should be taken not to let them come in contact with the seed that is sown. Rain is only beneficial to grain while in the blade; it is injurious to wheat and barley while they are in blossom, but is not detrimental to the leguminous plants, with the exception of the chick-pea. When grain is beginning to ripen, rain is injurious, and to barley in particular. There is a white grass that grows in the fields, very similar to panic in appearance, but fatal to cattle. As to darnel, the tribulus, the thistle, and the burdock, I can consider them, no more than the bramble, among the maladies that attack the cereals, but rather as so many pests inflicted on the earth. Mildew, a malady resulting from the inclemency of the weather, and equally attacking the vine and corn, is in no degree less injurious. It attacks corn most frequently in localities which are exposed to dews, and in vallies which have not a thorough draught for the wind; windy and elevated spots, on the other hand, are totally exempt from it. Another evil, again, in corn, is over-luxuriance, when it falls to the ground beneath the weight of the grain. One evil, however, to which all crops in common, the chick-pea even, are exposed, is the attacks of the caterpillar, when the rain, by washing away the natural saltness of the vegetation, makes it all the more tempting for its sweetness.

  There is a certain plant, too, which kills the chick-pea and the fitch, by twining around them; the name of it is “orobanche.” In a similar manner, also, wheat is attacked by darnel, barley by a long-stalked plant, called “ægilops,” and the lentil by an axe-leafed grass, to which, from the resemblance of the leaf, the Greeks have given the name of “pelecinon.” All these plants, too, kill the others by entwining around them. In the neighbourhood of Philippi, there is a plant known as ateramon, which grows in a rich soil, and kills the bean, after it has been exposed, while wet, to the blasts of a certain wind: when it grows in a thin, light soil, this plant is called “teramon.” The seed of darnel is extremely minute, and is enclosed in a prickly husk. If introduced into bread, it will speedily produce vertigo; and it is said that in Asia and Greece, the bath-keepers, when they want to disperse a crowd of people, throw this seed upon burning coals. The phalangium, a diminutive insect of the spider genus, breeds in the fitch, if the winter happens to be wet. Slugs, too, breed in the vetch, and sometimes a tiny snail makes its way out of the ground, and eats it away in a most singular manner.

  These are pretty nearly all the maladies to which grain is subject.

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  CHAP. 45.

  THE BEST REMEDIES FOR THE DISEASES OF GRAIN.

  The best remedy for these maladies, so long as grain is in the blade, is the weeding-hook, and, at the moment of sowing, ashes. As to those diseases which develop themselves in the seed and about the root, with due care precautions may be effectually employed against them. It is generally supposed that if seed has been first steeped in wine, it will be less exposed to disease. Virgil recommends that beans should be drenched with nitre and amurca of olives; and he says that if this is done, they will be all the larger. Some persons, again, are of opinion, that they will grow of increased size, if the seed is steeped for three days before it is sown in a solution of urine and water. If the ground, too, is hoed three times, a modius of beans in the pod, they say, will yield not less than a modius of shelled beans. Other seeds, again, it is said, will be exempt from the attacks of maggots, if bruised cypress leaves are mixed with them, or if they are sown just at the moon’s conjunction. Many persons, for the more effectual protection of millet, recommend that a bramble-frog should be carried at night round the field before the hoeing is done, and then buried in an earthen vessel in the middle of it. If this is done, they say, neither sparrows nor worms will attack the crop. The frog, however, must be disinterred before the millet is cut; for if this is neglected, the produce will be bitter. It is pretended, too, that all seeds which have been touched by the shoulders of a mole are remarkably productive.

  Democritus recommends that all seeds before they are sown should be steeped in the juice of the herb known as “aizoüm,” which grows on tiles or shingles, and is known to us by the Latin name of “sedum” or “digitellum.” If blight pre- vails, or if worms are found adhering to the roots, it is a very common remedy to sprinkle the plants with pure amurca of olives without salt, and then to hoe the ground. If, however, the crop should be beginning to joint, it should be stubbed at once, for fear lest the weeds should gain the upper hand. I know for certain that flights of starlings and sparrows, those pests to millet and panic, are effectually driven away by means of a certain herb, the name of which is unknown to me, being buried at the four corners of the field: it is a wonderful thing to rel
ate, but in such case not a single bird will enter it. Mice are kept away by the ashes of a weasel or a cat being steeped in water and then thrown upon the seed, or else by using the water in which the body of a weasel or a cat has been boiled. The odour, however, of these animals makes itself perceived in the bread even; for which reason it is generally thought a better plan to steep the seed in ox-gall. As for mildew, that greatest curse of all to corn, if branches of laurel are fixed in the ground, it will pass away from the field into the leaves of the laurel. Over-luxuriance in corn is repressed by the teeth of cattle, but only while it is in the blade; in which case, if depastured upon ever so often, no injury to it when in the ear will be the result. If the ear, too, is once cut off, the grain, it is well known, will assume a larger form, but will be hollow within and worthless, and if sown, will come to nothing.

  At Babylon, however, they cut the blade twice, and then let the cattle pasture on it a third time, for otherwise it would run to nothing but leaf. Even then, however, so fertile is the soil, that it yields fifty, and, indeed, with care, as much as a hundred, fold. Nor is the cultivation of it attended with any difficulty, the only object being to let the ground be under water as long as possible, in order that the extreme richness and exuberance of the soil may be modified. The Euphrates, however, and the Tigris do not deposit a slime, in the same way that the Niles does in Egypt, nor does the soil produce vegetation spontaneously; but still, so great is the fertility, that, although the seed is only trodden in with the foot, a crop springs up spontaneously the following year. So great a dif- ferrous in soils as this, reminds me that I ought to take this opportunity of specifying those which are the best adapted for the various kinds of grain.