Part 2 (1/2)

(LVII) The sum of the wine allowed for each hand per annum is eight quadrantals, or Amphora, but add in the proportion as they do work.

Ten quadrantals per annum is not too much to allow them to drink.

(LVIII) Save the wind fall olives as much as possible as relishes for the hands. Later set aside such of the ripe olives as will make the least oil. Be careful to make them go as far as possible. When the olives are all eaten, give them fish pickles and vinegar. One peck of salt per annum is enough for each hand.

(LIX) Allow each hand a smock and a cloak every other year. As often as you give out a smock or cloak to any one take up the old one, so that caps can be made out of it. A pair of heavy wooden shoes should be allowed every other year.

_Of draining_

(XLIII) If the land is wet, it should be drained with trough shaped ditches dug three feet wide at the surface and one foot at the bottom and four feet deep. Blind these ditches with rock. If you have no rock then fill them with green willow poles braced crosswise. If you have no poles, fill then with f.a.ggots. Then dig lateral trenches three feet deep and four feet wide in such way that the water will flow from the trenches into the ditches.

(CLV) In the winter surface water should be drained off the fields.

On hillsides courses should be kept clear for the water to flow off.

During the rainy season at the beginning of Autumn is the greatest risk from water. When it begins to rain all the hands should go out with picks and shovels and clear out the drains so that the water may flow off into the roads, and the crops be protected.

_Of preparing the seed bed_

(LXI) What is the first principle of good agriculture? To plough well.

What is the second? To plough again; and the third is to manure. When you plough corn land, plough well and in good weather, lest you turn a cloddy furrow. The other things of good agriculture are to sow seed plentifully, to thin the young sprouts, and to hill up the roots with earth.

(V) Never plough rotten land[30] nor drive flocks or carts across it.

If care is not taken about this, the land so abused will be barren for three years.

_Of manure_

(V) Plan to have a big compost heap and take the best of care of the manure. When it is hauled out see that it is well rotted and spread.

The Autumn is the time to do this.

(x.x.xVII) You can make manure of litter, lupine straw, chaff, bean stalks, husks and the leaves of ilex and of oak.[31]

(x.x.x) Fold your sheep on the land which you are about to seed, and there feed them leaves.[32]

_Of soil improvement_

(x.x.xVII) The things which are harmful to corn land are to plough the ground when it is rotten, and to plant chick peas which are harvested with the straw and are salt. Barley, fenugreek and pulse all exhaust corn land, as well as all other things which are harvested with the straw. Do not plant nut trees in the corn land. On the other hand, lupines, field beans and vetch manure corn land.[33]

(VI) Where the soil is rich and fertile, without shade, there the corn land ought to be. Where the land lies low, plant rape, millet, and panic gra.s.s.

_Of forage crops_

(VIII) If you have a water meadow you will not want forage, but if not then sow an upland meadow, so that hay may not be lacking.

(LIII) Save your hay when the times comes, and beware lest you mow too late. Mow before the seed is ripe. House the best hay by itself, so that you may feed it to the draft cattle during the spring ploughing, before the clover is mature.