CHAP. 42.—OCINUM: ERVILIA.
Among the ancients there was a sort of fodder, to which Cato297 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,298 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 oats299 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. Varro300 informs us that it received its name on account of the celerity with which it springs up, from the Greek ὠκέως, “quickly.”