71. Chap. 71.-Work To Be Done After The Summer Solstice.

CHAP. 71.—WORK TO BE DONE AFTER THE SUMMER SOLSTICE.

The following are the rural occupations for this interval of time-the ground must have another turning up, and the trees must be cleared about the roots and moulded up, where the heat of the locality requires it. Those plants, however, which are in bud must not be spaded at the roots, except where the soil is particularly rich. The seed-plots, too, must be well cleared with the hoe, the barley-harvest got in, and the threshing-floor prepared for the harvest with chalk, as Cato[1] tells us, slackened with amurca of olives; Virgil[2] makes mention of a method still more laborious even. In general, however, it is considered sufficient to make it perfectly level, and then to cover it with a solution of cow-dung[3] and water; this being thought sufficient to prevent the dust from rising.

1. De Re Rust. 129. Cato, however, does not mention chalk, but Virgil (Georg. i. 178) does. Poinsinet thinks that this is a "lapsus memoriæ" in Pliny, but Fée suggests that there may have been an omission by the copyists.

2. See the last Note. He recommends that it should be turned up with the hand, rammed down with "tenacious chalk," and levelled with a large roller.

3. Both cow-dung and mare of olives are still employed in some parts of France, in preparing the threshing floor.