The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Natural History of Pliny, Volume IV., by Pliny the Elder.

306 By 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.

307 In B. xiii. c. 47.

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

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

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

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

312 Some 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.

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

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

315 Lolium temulentum of Linnæus.

316 See 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.

318 Gallium Aparine of Linnæus.

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

320 The Erineum vitis of botanists.

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

322 See c. 32 of this Book.

323 The 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.

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

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

327 Pliny 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.

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

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

330 This plan is attended with no good results.

331 Georg. 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”

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

334 The “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.

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

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

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

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

340 De Re Rust. c. 6.

341 De Re Rust. c. 34.

342 “Ador.” See c. 10 of this Book.

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

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

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

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

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

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

353 According to Goropius Becanus, from plograt, the ancient Gallic for a plough-wheel. Hardouin thinks that it is from the Latin “plaustra rati;” and Poinsinet derives it from the Belgic ploum, a plough, and rat, or radt, a wheel.

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

355 De Re Rust. c. 61.

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

357 “Vere actum” “worked in spring.”

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

359 Crosswise, or horizontally.

360 Zig-zag, apparently.

361 A 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.

363 He 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.

365 Georg. 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.

366 Fée declines to give credit to this story.

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

369 In c. 65 of this Book.

373 In B. xvii. c. 7.

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

375 Or arm’s length from the elbow.

376 He 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.

377 How 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.

378 In B. xvii. c. 3.

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

382 In B. xvii. c. 6.

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

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

385 Poinsinet 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.

387 The 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.

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

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

391 This 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.

392 Sors genialis atque fecunda est.

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

394 In c. 19 of this Book.

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

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

397 From 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.”

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

——serere, cum est

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

400 In c. 8 of this Book.

403 See c. 74 of this Book.

404 Columella, B. ii. c. 8.

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

406 The 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.

407 Fifteenth of October.

408 First of November.

410 “To be an early winter.”

411 “To be a long winter.”

412 Confectum sidus.

413 In B. xvii. c. 2.

416 Twenty-seventh of January.

417 Ad solis cursum.

418 Soon 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.

419 He 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 the present Book.

420 Or Ἀστρικὴ βίβλος. It is now lost.

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

422 I. e. Asia Minor.

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

424 See 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.

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

427 He 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.

428 Twenty-fifth of December.

430 In 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.

431 He 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.

433 In his Œconomica.

434 In B. ii. c. 47.

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

436 “Lacernarum.”

437 “Puleium.” See B. ii. c. 41.

438 De Re Rust. i. 34.

439 The setting of the Vergiliæ.

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

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

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

443 For the grape and the olive.

444 First of November.

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

446 This is merely imaginary.

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

448 Hence the expression, “Halcyon days.”

450 In B. xvi. c. 74.

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

454 Fourth of January.

455 Eighth of January.

456 Seventeenth of January.

457 Twenty-fifth of January.

458 “Regia Stella.”

459 Fourth of February.

460 Or 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.