CHAP. 67. (27.)—WORK TO BE DONE AFTER THE RISING OF THE
VERGILIÆ: HAY-MAKING.
Nature had already formed the Vergiliæ, a noble group of
stars, in the heavens; but not content with these, she has
made others as well for the face of the earth, crying aloud, as
it were
1 "Why contemplate the heavens, husbandman?
Why, rustic, look up at the stars? Do not the nights already
afford you a sleep too brief for your fatigues? Behold now! I
scatter stars amid the grass for your service, and I reveal them
to you in the evening, as you return from your work; and
that you may not disregard them, I call your attention to this
marvel. Do you not see how the wings of this insect cover
a body bright and shining like fire, and how that body gives
out light in the hours of the night even? I have given you
plants to point out to you the hours, and, that you may not
have to turn your eyes from the earth, even to view the sun,
the heliotropium and the lupine have been made by me to move
with his movements. Why then still look upwards, and scan
the face of heaven? Behold, here before your very feet are
your Vergiliæ; upon a certain day do they make their appearance,
and for a certain time do they stay. Equally certain,
too, it is that of that constellation they are the offspring.
Whoever, then, shall put in his summer seeds before they have
made their appearance, will infallibly find himself in the
wrong."
It is in this interval, too, that the little bee comes forth, and
announces that the bean is about to blossom; for it is the bean
in flower that summons it forth. We will here give another
sign, which tells us when the cold is gone; as soon as ever
you see the mulberry
2 in bud, you have no occasion to fear any
injury from the rigour of the weather.
It is the time, now, to put in cuttings of the olive, to clear
away between the olive-trees, and, in the earlier days of the
equinox, to irrigate the meadows. As soon, however, as the
grass puts forth a stem, you must shut off the water from the
fields.
3 You must now lop the leafy branches of the vine, it
being the rule that this should be done as soon as the branches
have attained four fingers in length; one labourer will be sufficient
for a jugerun. The crops of corn, too, should be hoed
over again, an operation which lasts twenty days. It is generally
thought, however, that it is injurious to both vine and
corn to begin hoeing directly after the equinox. This is the
proper time, too, for washing sheep.
After the rising of the Vergiliæ the more remarkable signs
are, according to Cæsar, the morning rising of Arcturus, which
takes place on the following day;
4 and the rising of the Lyre
on the third
5 before the ides of May. The She-goat sets in
the evening of the twelfth before
6 the calends of June, and
in Attica the Dog. On the eleventh
7 before the calends of
June, according to Cæsar, Orion's Sword begins to appear; and,
according to the same writer, on the fourth
8 before the nones
of June the Eagle rises in the evening, and in Assyria as well.
On the seventh
9 before the ides of June Arcturus sets in the
morning to the people of Italy, and on the fourth
10 before the
ides the Dolphin rises in the evening. On the seventeenth
11
before the calends of July Orion's Sword rises in Italy, and,
four days later, in Egypt. On the eleventh
12 before the calends
of July, according to Cæsar's reckoning, Orion's Sword begins
to set; and the eighth
13 before the calends of July, the longest
day in the year, with the shortest night, brings us to the summer solstice.
In this interval of time the vine should be cleared of its
superfluous branches, and care taken to give an old vine one
turning up at the roots, a young tree two. Sheep, too, are
sheared at this period, lupines turned up for manuring the
land, the ground dug, vetches cut for fodder, and beans gathered
in and threshed.
(28.) About the calends of June
14 the meadows are mown;
the cultivation of which, the one which is the easiest of all,
and requires the smallest outlay, leads me to enter into some
further details relative to it. Meadow lands should be selected
in a rich, or else a moist or well-watered, soil, and care should
be taken to drain the rain-water upon them from the high-
road. The best method of ensurïng a good crop of grass, is
first to plough the land, and then to harrow it: but, before
passing the harrow over it, the ground should be sprinkled
with such seed as may have fallen from the hay in the haylofts and
mangers. The land should not be watered, however,
the first year,
15 nor should cattle be put to graze upon it before
the second hay-harvest, for fear lest the blade should be torn
up by the roots, or be trodden down and stunted in its growth.
Meadow land will grow old in time, and it requires to be renovated
every now and then, by sowing upon it a crop of beans,
or else rape or millet, after which it should be sown the next
year with corn, and then left for hay the third. Care, too,
should be taken, every time the grass is cut, to pass the sickle
over the ground, and so cut the aftermath which the mowers
have left behind; for it is a very bad plan to leave any of the
grass and let it shed its seed there. The best crop for meadow
land is trefoil,
16 and the next best is grass;
17 nummulus
18 is
the very worst of all, as it bears a pod which is particularly
injurious; equisætis,
19 too, which derives its name from its
resemblance to horse-hair, is of a noxions character. The proper time
for mowing grass is when the ear begins to shed its
blossom and to grow strong: care must be taken to cut it
before it becomes dry and parched. "Don't mow your hay
too late," says Cato;
20 "but cut it before the seed is ripe."
Some persons turn the water upon it the day before mowing,
where it is practicable to do so. It is the best plan to cut hay
in the night while the dews are falling.
21 In some parts of
Italy the mowing is not done till after harvest.
This operation, too, was a very expensive one in ancient
times. In those days the only whetstones
22 known were
those of Crete and other places beyond sea, and they only used
oil to sharpen the scythe with. For this purpose the mower
moved along, with a horn, to hold the oil, fastened to his
thigh. Italy has since furnished us with whetstones which are
used with water, and give an edge to the iron quite equal to
that imparted by the file; these water-whetstones, however,
turn green very quickly. Of the scythe
23 there are two va-
rieties; the Italian,
24 which is considerably shorter than the
other, and can be handled among underwood even; and the
Gallic, which makes quicker work
25 of it, when employed on
extensive domains, for there they cut the grass in the middle
only, and pass over the shorter blades. The Italian mowers
cut with one hand only. It is a fair day's work for one man
to cut a jugerum of grass, and for another to bind twelve hundred
sheaves of four pounds each. When the grass is cut it
should be turned towards the sun, and must never be stacked
until it is quite dry. If this last precaution is not carefully
taken, a kind of vapour will be seen arising from the rick in
the morning, and as soon as the sun is up it will ignite to a
certainty, and so be consumed. When the grass has been cut,
the meadow must be irrigated again, for the purpose of ensuring a
crop in the autumn, known to us as the "cordum," or
aftermath. At Interamna in Umbria the grass is cut four
times
26 a-year, and this although the meadows there are not
irrigated,—in most places, three. After all this has been done,
too, the pasturage of the land is found no less lucrative than
the hay it has produced. This, however, is a matter of consideration
for those more particularly who rear large herds of
cattle, and every one whose occupation it is to breed beasts of
burden, will have his own opinions upon the subject: it is
found, however, the most lucrative of all by those whose business it
is to train chariot-horses.