It really might have been thought that I had now given an account of all the vegetable productions that are held in any degree of esteem, did there not still remain one plant, the cultivation of which is extremely profitable, and of which I am unable to speak without a certain degree of shame. For it is a well-known fact, that some small plots of land, planted with thistles,[1] in the vicinity of Great Carthage and of Corduba more particularly, produce a yearly income of six thousand sesterces;[2] this being the way in which we make the monstrous productions even of the earth subservient to our gluttonous appetites, and that, too, when the very four-footed brutes[3] instinctively refuse to touch them.

Thistles are grown two different ways, from plants set in autumn, and from seed sown before the nones of March;[4] in which latter case they are transplanted before the ides of November,[5] or, where the site is a cold one, about the time that the west winds prevail. They are sometimes manured even, and if[6] such is the will of heaven, grow all the better for it. They are preserved, too, in a mixture of honey and vinegar,[7] with the addition of root of laser and cummin—so that a day may not pass without our having thistles at table.[8]