And upon this subject,[1667] the peasants of Hellas had little more to say; their opinion having been that, in proportion to the number of rainbows, would be the fury and continuance of the showers with which they were threatened.
Other signs of mutation in the atmosphere they discovered in almost every part of nature; for example, when bubbles rose on the surface of a river they looked for a fall of rain; as also when small land-birds were seen drenching their plumage; when the crow was beheld washing his head upon the rocky beach,[1668] or the raven flapping his wings, while with his voice he imitated amidst his croaking the pattering of drops of rain; when the peasant was awakened in the morning by the cry of the passing crane,[1669] or the shrill note of the chaffinch within his dwelling. Flights of island birds flocking to the continent,[1670] preceded drought; as a number of jackdaws and ravens flying up and down, and imitating the scream of the hawk, did rain. The incessant shrieks of the screech-owl and the vehement cawing of the crow, heard during a serene night, foretold the approach of storms. The barn-door fowl and the house-dog also played the part of soothsayers, teaching their master to dread impending storms by rolling themselves in the dust. Of similar import was the flocking of geese with noise to their food, or the skimming of swallows along the surface of the water.[1671] Again, when troops of dolphins were seen rolling near the shore, or oxen licking their fore-hoofs, or looking southwards, or, with a suspicious air, snuffing the elements,[1672] or going bellowing to their stalls; when wolves approached the homesteads; when flies bit sharp,[1673] or frogs croaked vociferously, or the ruddock, or land-toad, crept into the water; when the salamander lizard appeared, and the note of the green-frog was heard in the trees, the rustic donned his capote, and prepared, like Anaxagoras at Olympia,[1674] for a shower. The flight of the storm-birds, kepphoi,[1675] was supposed to indicate a tempest from the point of the heavens towards which they flew. When in bright and windless weather clouds of cobwebs,[1676] floated through the air, the husbandman anticipated a drenching for his fields, as also when earthen pots and brass pans emitted sparks; when lamps spat; when the wick made mushrooms;[1677] when a halo encircled its flame,[1678] or when the flame itself was dusky. The housewife was forewarned of coming hail-storms, generally from the north, by a profusion of bright sparks appearing on the surface of her charcoal fire; when her feet swelled she knew that the wind would blow from the south.[1679] Heaps of clouds like burnished copper rising after rain in the west portended fine weather; as did likewise the tops of lofty mountains, as Athos, Ossa, and Olympos, appearing sharply defined against the sky; while an apparent augmentation in the height of promontories and the number of islands foreshowed wind.
1621. De Re Rusticâ, i. 1. Cf. Colum. i. 1.
1622. Xenoph. Œconom. xx. 22, sqq.
1623. Cf. Plat. De Legg. t. vii. p. 111. t. viii. p. 103.
1624. Xenoph. Œconom. xvi. 1, sqq.
1625. The sight of a rich and thriving neighbour operated likewise as a spur to his industry:—
1626. Opp. et Dies, 298, sqq.
1627. Sch. Aristoph. Pac. 190.
1628.
1629. Cf. Plut. Sympos. vii. 3.
1630. Geop. ii. 9. In these rich loams, particularly on the banks of the Stymphalian and Copaic lakes, wheat has been known to yield a return of fifty-fold. Thiersch, Etat Act. de la Grèce. t. ii. p. 17.
Other spots, again, return thirty-fold. Sibth. in Walp. Mem. i. 60.
1631. The pitch-pine indicated a light and hungry soil; the cypress, a clayey soil. Philost. Icon. ii. 9. p. 775.
1632. Geop. ii. 11.
1633. The Grecian husbandman, therefore, when planting palm-trees in any other than a sandy soil, sprinkled salt on the earth immediately around. Theoph. Hist. Plant. i. 6. 2.
1634. Geop. ii. 10.
1635. Xenoph. Anab. ii. 3. 16. The doom-palm, generally, I believe, supposed to be peculiar to Upper Egypt and the countries beyond the cataract, was anciently cultivated also in Crete. Theoph. Hist. Plant. i. 6. 3.
1636. Geop. ii. 4, sqq.
1637. Philost. Icon. ii. 9. p. 775.
1638. Spallanzani, in his scientific Travels in the Two Sicilies, describes and explains the cause of the rarity of springs in volcanic countries. In some districts among the roots of Ætna the female peasants are compelled to travel ten miles, at certain seasons of the year, in search of water, a jar of which costs, consequently, almost a day’s journey. vol. i. p. 299, sqq. In another part of the same work he investigates the origin of springs in the Æolian isles, which he illustrates by the example of Stromboli. iv. 128. In this island there are two fountains, one of slightly tepid water, at the foot of the mountain, the other on its slope. “Je recontrai,” observes Monsieur Dolomieu, “à moitié hauteur une source d’eau froide, douce, légère et très bonne à boire, qui ne tarit jamais et qui est l’unique ressourse des habitans lorsque leurs cîternes sont épuisées et lorsque les chaleurs ont desséché une seconde source qui est au pied de la montagne ce qui arrive tous les étés.” He then adds with reason: “Cette petite fontaine dans ce lieu très élevé au milieu des cendres volcaniques, est très remarquable, elle ne peut avoir son réservoir que dans une pointe de montagne isolée, toute de sable et de pierres poreuses, matières qui ne peuvent point retenir l’eau, puisqu’elles sont perméables à la fumée.” Voyage aux Iles de Lipari, t. i. p. 120. He then endeavours to account for its existence by evaporation. In the island of Saline, among the same Æolian group, there is another never-failing spring, which, as some years no rain falls in these islands during the space of nine months, has greatly perplexed the theories of naturalists. Spallanzani conceives, however, that the phenomenon may be explained in the usual way: “It appears to me,” he says, “extremely probable, that in the internal parts of an island which, like this, is the work of fire, there may be immense caverns that may be filled with water by the rains; and that in some of these which are placed above the spring, the water may always continue at nearly the same height.” Travels in the Two Sicilies, vol. iv. p. 136.
1639. Le Vaillant, t. viii. p. 162. Even in the southern provinces of France, the discovery of hidden springs is an art of no mean importance; and the persons who possess it are regarded as public benefactors. Thus, as I learn from my friend M. Louis Froment, of the department of the Lot, M. Paramelle, a curé having a living in that part of the country, is held in high estimation on account of the power he possesses of discovering the lurking retreats of spring-heads. He is able, from a certain distance, and without the least hesitation, to point out the source of living water, determine the depth at which it is to be found, say, without ever falling into error, what is the quantity and what the quality of the water. Without seeking to penetrate the plan, of which he keeps the secret, his countrymen avail themselves of the advantages offered to them; and the inhabitants of one village, situated on a calcareous tableland, have discovered, by the assistance of M. Paramelle, a source in their market-place, whilst before they were compelled to seek water at a distance of five miles.
1640. Geop. ii. 4.
1641. Geop. ii. 6.
1642. Cf. Hesiod. Opp. et Dies, 233, where he speaks of swarms of wild bees on the slopes of the mountains.
In another passage this poet describes the ravages and devastation of a hurricane amid the fountain forests:
The pine and pitch trees, it is related by Theophrastus, were often uprooted by the winds in Arcadia. Hist. Plant. iii. 6. 4.
1643. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 3. 7. In all countries, small and great, the progress of civilisation has been inimical to forests. Thus in the little island of Stromboli, containing about a thousand inhabitants, attempts were made towards the end of the eighteenth century to enlarge the cultivable ground by clearing away the woods. Spallanzani, Travels in the Two Sicilies, vol. iv. p. 126, seq. The difficulty of extirpating trees is illustrated by Theophrastus who relates that, in a spot near Pheneon in Arcadia, a well-wooded tract was overflowed by the water and the trees destroyed. Next year, when the flood had subsided and the mud dried, each kind of tree appeared in the situation which it had formerly occupied. The willow, the elm, the pine, and the fir, growing in its own place, doubtless from the roots of the former trees. Hist. Plant. iii. 1. 2. Again: the Nessos, in the territory of the Abderites, constantly changed its bed, and in the old channels trees sprung up so rapidly that, in three years, they were so many strips of forest. Id. iii. 1. 5.
1644. Thiersch, Etat Actuel de la Grèce. t. i. p. 276. It is remarked by Theophrastus, however, that pine forests, being destroyed by fire, shot up again, as happened in Lesbos, on a mountain near Pyrrha. Hist. Plant. iii. 9. 4.
1645. Cf. Chandler, i. p. 261. The apparatus now used in irrigation by the Sciots exactly resembles that of the Egyptian Arabs. Id. i. 315.
1646. Demosth. Adv. Polycl. § 16. On the supply of water to Athens we possess little positive information, though we cannot doubt that all possible advantage was taken of those pure sources which are still found in its neighbourhood. “In no country necessity was more likely to have created the hydragogic art than in Attica; and we have evidence of the attention bestowed by the Athenians upon their canals and fountains in the time of Themistocles, as well as in that of Alexander the Great.” Col. Leake, on some disputed points in the Topography of Athens. Trans. Lit. Soc. iii. 189. Cf. Aristoph. Av. Schol. 998. Plut. Themist. § 31. Arist. Polit. vi. 8. vii. 12. We find, from Theophrastus, that there was in his time, an aqueduct in the Lyceum with a number of plane trees growing near it. Theoph. Hist. Plant. i. 7. 1.
1647. Mitford, i. 33, seq. In Bœotia, Babylonia, Egypt, and Cyrenaica, the dew served instead of rain. Theoph. Hist. Plant. viii. 4. 6.
1648. Λακκοὶ. Machon. ap. Athen. xiii. 43.
1649. Geop. ii. 7.
1650. Sir W. Hamilton, Acc. of Discov. at Pompeii, p. 13.
1651. Water was cooled by being suspended in vessels over the mouths of wells; and sometimes boiled previously to render the process more complete. For, according to the Peripatetics, πᾶν ὕδωρ προθερμανθὲν ψύχεται μᾶλλον, ὥσπερ τὸ τοῖς βασιλεῦσι παρασκευαζόμενον, ὅταν ἑψηθῇ μέχρι ζέσεως, περισωρεύουσι τῷ ἀγγείῳ χιόνα πολλὴν, καὶ γίνεται ψυχρότερον. Plut. Sympos. vi. 4. 1.
1652. Geop. i. 2–4. 11. Theophrast. De Signis Pluviarum et de Ventis, passim. Our own agriculturists, also, were formerly much addicted to these studies. Thus, “The oke apples, if broken in sunder about the time of their withering, do foreshewe the sequel of the yeare, as the expert Kentish husbandmen have observed, by the living things found in them: as, if they find an ant, they foretell plentie of graine to insue; if a whole worm, like a gentill or maggot, then they prognosticate murren of beasts and cattle; if a spider, then (saie they) we shall have a pestilence or some such like sickness to followe amongst men. These things the learned, also, have observed and noted: for Mathiolus, writing upon Dioscorides saith, that before they have an hole through them, they conteine in them either a flie, a spider, or a worme; if a flie, then warre insueth; if a creeping worme, then scarcitie of victuals; if a running spider, then followeth great sickness and mortalitie.” Gerrard, Herball, Third Book, c. 29. p. 1158. Cf. Lord Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum, 561.
1653. Cf. Hesiod, Opp. et Dies, 486, seq.
1654. Cf. Lord Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum, 675. 812.
1655. Cf. Arato. Prognost. 102, sqq. But, on the other hand, “purus oriens, atque non fervens, serenum diem nuntiat.” Plin. Hist. Nat. xviii. 78. Aristot. Problem. xxvi. 8.
1656. The sun-sets of the Mediterranean exhibit, as most travellers will have observed, a variety of gorgeous phenomena, which, as betokening certain states of the atmosphere serve as so many admonitions to the husbandman. The sun before going down “assumed,” observes Dr. Chandler, “a variety of fantastic shapes. It was surrounded, first, with a golden glory of great extent, and flamed upon the surface of the sea in a long column of fire. The lower half of the orb soon after emerged in the horizon, the other portion remaining very large and red, with half of a smaller orb beneath it, and separate, but in the same direction, the circular rim approaching the line of its diameter. These two, by degrees, united, and then changed rapidly into different figures, until the resemblance was that of a capacious punch-bowl inverted. The rim of the bottom extending upward, and the body lengthening below it, became a mushroom on a stalk with a round head. It was next metamorphosed into a flaming caldron, of which the lid, rising up, swelled nearly into an orb and vanished. The other portion put on several uncircular forms, and, after many twinklings and faint glimmerings, slowly disappeared, quite red, leaving the clouds hanging over the dark rocks on the Barbary shore finely tinged with a vivid bloody hue.” Travels, i. p. 4. Appearances similar, though of inferior brilliance and variety, are sometimes witnessed in the Western Hemisphere. Describing the beauties of an evening on the Canadian shore, Sir R. H. Bonnycastle observes: “First, there was a double sun by reflection, each disk equally distinct; afterwards, when the orb reached the mark x, a solid body of light, equal in breadth with the sun itself, but of great length from the shore, shot down on the sea, and remained like a broad fiery golden column, or bar, until the black high land hid the luminary itself.” The Canadas in 1841. v. i. p. 34.
1657.
1658. Plin. Hist. Nat. xviii. 78. Aratus, Prognost. 137, sqq.
1659. Cf. Plin. xviii. 82. “Si nubes ut vellera lanæ spargentur multæ ab oriente, aquam in triduum præsagient;” and Virg. Georg, i. 397:
1660. If the Mounts Parnes and Brylessus appeared enveloped in clouds, the circumstance was thought to foretel a tempest. Theoph. de Sign. Pluv. iii. 6. Cf. Strabo. ix. 11. t. ii. p. 253.
1661. Pausan. ii. 30. 3. Pind. Nem. v. 10. Dissen.—Müll. Æginetica, § 5. p. 19.
1662. Dion. Chrysost. i. 222. Cf. Aristot. Prob. xxvi. 1.
1663. This is explained by Lord Bacon. “The upper regions of the air,” he observes, “perceive the collection of the matter of tempest and wind before the air here below. And, therefore, the observing of the smaller stars is a sign of tempests following.” Sylva Sylvarum, 812.
1664. Similar observations have been made in most countries, as we find from the signs of the weather collected by Erra Pater, and translated by Lilly, Part iv. § 3–5.
1665. Cf. Seneca. Quæst. Nat. i. c. 2.
1666. Aristot. Problem, xxvi. 24. Alexand. Aphrodis. Problem. i. 72. Plin. xviii. 80. Virg. Georg. i. 365, sqq.
1667. On the effects of the rainbow the ancients held a curious opinion, which Lord Bacon thus expounds:—“It hath been observed by the ancients, that where a rainbow seemeth to hang over or to touch, there breathed forth a sweet smell. The cause is, for that this happeneth but in certain matters which have in themselves some sweetness, which the gentle dew of the rainbow doth draw forth, and the like to soft showers, for they also make the ground sweet, but none are so delicate as the dew of the rainbow where it falleth.” Sylva Sylvarum. 832. His Lordship here, as in many other places, adopts the explanation of the Peripatetics while he seems to be himself assigning the cause of the phenomenon. Aristotle (Problem. 12. 3) enters fully into the subject, which appears to have been brought under the notice of philosophers by the shepherds who had observed that when certain thickets had been laid in ashes the passing of a rainbow over the spot caused a sweet odour to exhale from it. The same fact is noticed by Theophrastus, De Caus. Plant. 6. 17. 7. Cf. Plin. Hist. Nat. 12. 52. 21. 18. 2. 60. To many among the older philosophers that comparatively rare phenomenon, the lunar rainbow, was unknown. (Arist. Meteor. iii. 2: νύκτωρ δ᾽ ἀπὸ σελήνης ὡς μὲν οἱ ἀρχαῖοι ᾢοντο οὐκ ἐγίγνετο·) but in the time of Aristotle it had been observed, and the cause of its pearly whiteness investigated. Cf. Meteorol. iii. 4. 5. Senec. Quæst. Nat. i. 2, sqq.
1668. Cf. Ælian. De Nat. Anim. vii. 7.
1669.
To the same purpose, Homer:—Il. γ. 3, sqq.
And Aristophanes:—(Av. 710, sqq.)
1670. All birds which frequent the sea, more particularly those which fly high, are observed to seek terra firma at the approach of foul weather:—Ἀριστοτέλους ἀκούω λέγοντος, ὅτι ἄρα γέρανοι ἐκ τοὺς πελάγους εἰς τὴν γῆν πετόμενοι, χειμῶνος ἀπειλὴν ἰσχουραὶ ὑποσημαίνουσι τῷ συνιέντι. Ælian. De Nat. Anim. vii. 7. Before the great earthquake of 1783, which shook the whole of Calabria and destroyed the city of Messina, the mews and other aquatic birds were observed to forsake the sea and take refuge in the mountains. Spallanzani, Travels in the Two Sicilies, vol. iv. p. 158.
1671. Aut arguta lacus circumvolitat hirundo. Virg. Georg. i. 377. “Hirundo tam juxta aquam volitans, ut penna sæpe percutiat.” Plin. xviii. 87.
1672. Plin. xviii. 88. Virg. Georg. i. 375.—Ælian, De Nat. Anim. vii. 8, describes the ox before rain snuffing the earth, and adds: πρόβατα δὲ ἐρυττοντα ταῖς ὁπλαῖς τὴν γῆν, ἔοικε σημαίνειν χιεμῶνα.
1673. Cf. Ælian De Nat. Anim. viii. 8.
1674. Diog. Laert. i. 3. 5. Ælian (De Nat. Anim. vii. 8) relates a curious anecdote of Hipparchos who, from some change in the goatskin cloak he wore, likewise foretold a rain storm to the great admiration of Nero.
1675. Probably the storm-finch observed frequently on the wing flying along the Ægean sea, particularly when it is troubled. Sibth. in Walp. Mem. i. 76.
1676. Cf. Aristot. Problem. xxvii. 63, where he investigates the causes of the phenomenon; and Plin. Nat. Hist. xi. 28.
1677. Vid. Aristoph. Vesp. 262. The Scholiast entertains a somewhat different notion:—φασὶν ὅτι ὑετοῦ μέλλοντος γενέσθαι οἱ περὶ τὴν θρυαλλίδα τοῦ λύχνου σπινθῆρες ἀποπηδῶσιν, οὓς μύκητας νῦν λέγει, ὡς τοῦ λύχνου ἐναντιουμένου τῷ νοτερῷ ἀέρι· καὶ Ἄρατος “ἢ λύχνοιο μύκητες ἐγείρονται περὶ μύξαν, νύκτα κατὰ νοτίην.”
1678. Aristot. Meteorol. iii. 4. Seneca, Quæst. Nat. i. 2.
1679. Cf. Aristot. Problem. xxvi. 17.
CHAPTER V.
THE VARIOUS PROCESSES OF AGRICULTURE.
If we now pass to the actual labours of the farm, and the implements by which they were usually carried on, we shall find that the Grecian husbandman was no way deficient in invention, or in that ingenuity by which men have in all countries sought to diminish their toils. For the purpose of procuring at a cheap rate whatever was wanted for the use of the establishment,[1680] smiths, carpenters, and potters, were kept upon the land or in its immediate neighbourhood; by which means also the necessity was avoided of often sending the farm-servants to the neighbouring town, where it was observed they contracted bad habits, and were rendered more vicious and slothful.[1681] Waggons, therefore, and carts, and ploughs, and harrows, were constructed on the spot, though it was sometimes necessary perhaps to obtain from a distance the timber used for these implements, which was generally cut in winter-time. They exhibited much nicety in their choice of wood. Thus they would have the poplar or mulberry-tree for the felloes of their wheels; the ash, the ilex, and the oxya, for the axle-tree, and fine close-grained maple for the yokes of their oxen,[1682] sometimes carved in the form of serpents which seemed to wind round the necks of the animals, and project their heads on either side.[1683] Their harrows, it is probable, were formed like our own. The construction of the plough,[1684] always continued to be extremely simple. In the age of Hesiod[1685] it consisted of four parts, the handle, the socket, the coulter, and the beam; and very little alteration seems afterwards to have been made in its form or structure, till the introduction of the wheel-plough, which did not, it is believed, occur until after the age of Virgil. The more primitive instrument, however, would seem to have consisted originally of two parts only, one serving the purpose of handle, socket, and share, the other being the beam by which it was fastened to the yoke. In the antique implement[1686] the beam was sometimes made of laurel or elm, the socket of oak, and the handle of ilex.
Before mills were invented, the instrument by which they reduced corn into flour was a large mortar, scooped out of the trunk of a tree, furnished with a pestle upwards of four feet in length, exactly resembling that still in use among the Egyptian Arabs. To give the pestle greater effect it was fixed above in a cross-bar, seven feet long, and worked by two individuals.[1687] By this rude contrivance, it is possible to produce flour as fine as that proceeding from the most perfect boulting machine. In addition to these they possessed winnowing fans, scythes, sickles, pruning-hooks, fern or braken-scythes, saws and hand-saws, used in pruning and grafting, spades, shovels, rakes, pick-axes, hoes, mattocks,—one, two, and three pronged,—dibbles, fork-dibbles, and grubbing-axes.[1688] When rustics were clearing away underwood or cutting down brakes, they went clad in hooded skin-cloaks, leather gaiters, and long gloves.[1689]
On the subject of manure[1690] the Greeks appear to have entertained very just notions, and have left behind them numerous rules for using and preparing it. In lean lands which required most the help of art, they were still careful to avoid excess in the employment of manure, spreading it frequently rather than copiously; for as, left to themselves, they would have been too cold, so, when over enriched by art, their prolific virtue was thought to be consumed by heat. In applying it to plants, they were careful to interpose a layer of earth lest their roots should be scorched. Of all kinds of manure they considered that of birds the best,[1691] except the aquatic species, which, when mixed, however, was not rejected. Most husbandmen set a peculiar value on the sweepings of dovecotes,[1692] which, in small quantities, were frequently scattered over the fields with the seed.
On the preparation of manure-pits they bestowed much attention.[1693] Having sunk them sufficiently deep in places abundantly supplied with water, they cast therein large quantities of weeds, with all descriptions of manure, among which they reckoned even earth itself, when completely impregnated with humidity. When they had lain long enough to be entirely decayed, they were fit for use. To the above were sometimes added wood-ashes, the refuse of leather-dressers, the cleansing of stables, and cow-houses, with stubble, brambles, and thorns reduced to ashes. In maritime situations sea-weed,[1694] also, having been well washed in fresh water, was mingled in large proportion with other materials, and, where possible, a channel was made conducting the muck and puddle[1695] of the neighbouring road into the pit, which at once accelerated the putrescence of the manure and augmented it. The Attic husbandmen had a mode of enriching their lands[1696] somewhat expensive, and, as far as I know, peculiar to themselves; having sown a field, they allowed the corn to spring up and the blade to reach a considerable height, upon which they again ploughed it in as a kind of sacrifice to the earth. A practice, not altogether unlike, still prevails in the kingdom of Naples, where the husbandmen sometimes bury their beans and lupins, just before flowering, for manure.[1697]
In ploughing there was great variety of practice, and in small farms, where the soil was light, they had recourse to what may be denominated spade husbandry. Most lands were ploughed thrice; first, immediately after the removal of the preceding crop; secondly, at a convenient interval of time; and, thirdly,[1698] in the sowing season, when the ploughman scattered the grain in the furrows as they were laid open while a lad followed at his heels with a hoe breaking the clods and covering the seed that it might not be devoured by the birds.[1699] Occasionally, in very hot weather, and in certain situations, the farmer ploughed all night;[1700] first, out of consideration to the oxen, whose health would have suffered from the sun; secondly, to preserve the moisture and richness of the soil; and, thirdly, by the aid of the dew, to render it more pliable. On these occasions, it was customary to employ two pair of oxen and a heavier share in order to produce the deeper furrows, and turn up the hidden fat of the earth. In choosing a ploughman they took care that he should be tall and powerful,[1701] that he might be able to thrust the share deeper into the ground and wield it generally with facility: and yet they would not, if possiblepossible, that he should be under forty years of age, lest, instead of attending to his duties, his eye should be glancing hither and thither, and his mind be roving after his companions.[1702] When in particular haste to complete his task, the ploughman often carried a long loaf under his arm, which, like the French peasants, he ate as he went along.[1703] In this department of rural labour it may be observed, mules were sometimes employed as well as oxen.[1704] Both were directed and kept in order by a sharp goad.[1705]
As the Greeks well understood the practice of fallowing, their lands were then, as now, suffered to regain their strength by lying for a time idle;[1706] and it seems to have been as much their custom as it is still of their descendants,[1707] for the poor, at least, to roam over these fallow grounds, collecting nettles,[1708] mallows, the sow-thistle or jagged lettuce,[1709] dandelions, sea-purslain, stoches, hartwort, briony sprouts, gentle-rocket, usually found in the environs of towns, and about the courts of houses, gardens, and ruins, with other wild herbs for salads, or to be eaten as vegetables.
The rules observed in sowing were numerous, and, in many instances, not a little curious. As a matter of course, they were careful to adapt the grain to the soil:[1710] thus rich plains were appropriated to wheat, and in the intervals cropped with vegetables; middling grounds to barley;[1711] while poor and hungry spots were given up to lentils, vetches, lupins, and such other pulse as were cultivated on a large scale. Beans and peas, however, were supposed to thrive best in fat and level lands. The principal sowing-time[1712] was in autumn; for, as soon as the equinoctial rains had moistened the earth, the sower immediately went forth to sow, committing to the ground the hopes of the future year. The best time for scattering wheat they placed somewhere in November, about the setting of the constellation called the Crown. They were careful in this operation to avoid the time when the south wind[1713] blew, and, generally, all cold and raw weather, as it rendered the earth ungenial, and little apt to fructify that which was entrusted to it. Great skill was supposed to be required in scattering the seed: in the first place, that it should be equally distributed; and, secondly, that none should fall between the horns of the oxen, superstition having taught them the belief that such grain, which they denominated Kerasbolos,[1714] if it sprang up at all, would produce corn which could neither be baked nor eaten. A favourite sowing sieve was made of wolf’s-hide, pierced with thirty holes as large as the tips of the fingers. In later ages much virtue was supposed to reside in the barbarous term Phriel,[1715] which they accordingly wrote on the plough. The choice of grains for sowing necessarily afforded much exercise[1716] to their ingenuity: seed wheat, they thought, should be of a rich gold colour, full, smooth, and solid; barley, white and heavy; both not exceeding one year old, for they quickly deteriorated, and, after the third year, would not they supposed grow. This, however, was an error, since barley has been known to preserve its vitality upwards of two thousand years.
It was customary often to renew seed by sowing the produce of mountains on plains; of dry places in moist, and the contrary.[1717] To try the comparative value of different qualities of grain[1718] they took a sample of each, and sowed the whole in separate patches of the same bed, a little before the rising of the Dog-star. If the produce of any of these samples withered, through the influence they supposed of Syrius, the wheat which it represented was rejected. As corn when committed to the earth is exposed to numerous enemies, they had recourse to a variety of contrivances for its preservation: to protect it from birds, mice, and ants,[1719] they steeped it in the juice of houseleeks, or mixed it with hellebore and cypress leaves, and scattered it out of a circle, or sprinkled it with water into which river crabs had been thrown for eight days, or with powdered hartshorn or ivory. Not satisfied with these precautions, they had likewise recourse to scarecrows,[1720] fixing up long reeds here and there in the fields, with dead birds suspended to them by the feet. This long list of contrivances they closed by a spell: taking a live toad, they carried it round the field by night, after which they shut it up carefully in a jar, which they buried in the middle of the grounds.
When the corn began to spring up it was diligently weeded[1721] a first and a second time. They would not trust entirely, however, to the industry of their hands, but called in to their aid certain characteristic enchantments, some two or three of which may be worth describing. First, to subdue the growth of choke-weed they planted sprigs of rose-laurel, at the corner and in the middle of their fields, or set up a number of potsherds, upon which had been drawn with chalk the figure of Heracles strangling the lion. But the most effectual of all spells, was for a young woman, naked and with dishevelled hair, to take a live cock in her hands and bear him round the fields, upon which, not only would the choke-weed and the restharrow vanish,[1722] but all the produce of the land would turn out of a superior quality.[1723]
As the ancients well understood the value of hay, they took much pains in the formation and management of meadows. In the first place, all stones, stumps, bushes, and brambles,[1724] were diligently removed, together with whatever else might interrupt the free play of the scythe in mowing. They avoided, moreover, letting into them their droves of hogs, which were found to turn up the soil and destroy the roots of the young grass. In moist lands, too, even the larger cattle were excluded, as the holes made by their hoofs[1725] in sinking broke up the fine level of the turf. Old hay fields, in districts where much rain fell, grew in time to be clothed with a coating of moss,[1726] which some farmers sought to remove by manuring the ground with ashes; but the more scientific agriculturists ploughed them up, and took precisely the same steps as in the formation of a new meadow, that is, they sowed the ground with beans, turnips, or rape-seed, which, in the second year, were succeeded by wheat; on the third it was thoroughly cleared out, and sown with hay-seed, mingled with vetches, after which the whole field was finely levelled by the harrow.
The rules observed by them in the regulation of their hay harvest[1727] were, first, to mow before the grass or clover was withered, when it became less rich and nutritive; second, to beware in making the ricks, that it was neither too dry nor too damp, since in the former case it was little better than straw, and in the latter was liable to spontaneous combustion.[1728] It may be observed further, that clover[1729] was usually sown in March or April, and though commonly mown six, or at least five, times in the twelve months, did not require to be renewed in less than ten years.[1730]
Harvest usually commenced in Greece about the rising of the Pleiades,[1731] when the corn had already acquired a deep gold colour, though not yet so ripe as to fall from the ear, which in barley happens earlier than in wheat, the grain having no hose.[1732] Among the Romans operations were preceded by the sacrifice[1733] of a young sow to Ceres, with libations of wine, the burning of frankincense, and the offering of a cake to Jove, Juno, and Janus. They, at the same time, addressed their prayers to the last-mentioned gods, nearly in the following words:—“O father Janus or Jupiter, in making an oblation of this cake I offer up my prayers that thou wouldst be propitious to me and my children, my house, and my family!”[1734]
At Athens, as soon as the season for reaping[1735] had come round, those hardy citizens who lived by letting out their strength for hire,[1736] ranged themselves in bands in the agora, whither the farmers of the neighbourhood resorted in search of harvesters. They then, in consequence of the hot weather, proceeded half-naked[1737] to the fields, where, taking the sickle in hand, and separating into two divisions, they stationed themselves at either end of the piece of corn to be reaped, and began their work with vigour and emulation, each party striving to reach the centre of the field before their rivals.[1738] On other occasions they took advantage of the wind,[1739] moving along with it, whereby they were supposed to benefit considerably, avoiding the beard or chaff which it might have blown into their eyes, and having by its action the tall straw bent to their hand.
In many parts of Greece, though the practice was not general, the women joined in these labours. The reapers, as they advanced, laid the corn behind them in long lines upon the stubble, and were followed by two other classes of harvesters, one of whom bound it into sheaves which the others bore back and piled up into mows. Of the whole of these operations, together with the plenteous feast which interrupted or terminated their toils, Homer has left us a graphic picture in the Iliad:[1740]