It remained for Jethro Tull of the Horseshoeing Husbandry to unloose in England the long spell of the magic of Virgil’s poetry upon practical agriculture.]

[Footnote 84:  The Julian calendar, which took effect on January 1, B.C. 45, had been in use only eight years when Varro was writing.]

[Footnote 85:  Schneider and others have attempted to emend the enumeration of the days in this succession of seasons, but Keil justly observes:  “As we do not know what principle Varro followed in establishing these divisions of the year, it is safer to set them down as they are written in the codex than to be tempted by uncertain emendation.”  I have accordingly followed Keil here.]

[Footnote 86:  The practice of ridging land seeded to grain was necessary before the invention of the modern drill.  Dickson, in his Husbandry of the Ancients, XXIV, argues that, while wasteful of land, it had the advantage of preventing the grain from lodging.  Walter of Henley, who followed the Roman methods by tradition without knowing it, advises with them that to be successful in this kind of seeding the furrow at the last ploughing of the fallow should be so narrow as to be indistinguishable.  “At sowing do not plough large furrows,” he says, “but little and well laid together that the seed may fall evenly:  if you plough a large furrow to be quick you will do harm.  How?  I will tell you.  When, the ground is sown then the harrow will come and pull the corn into the hollow which is between the two ridges and the large ridge shall be uncovered, then no corn shall grow there.  And will you see this?  When the corn is above ground go to the end of the ridge and you will see that I tell you truly.  And if the land must be sown below the ridge see that it is ploughed with small furrows and the earth raised as much as you are able.  And see that the ridge which is between the two furrows is narrow.  And let the earth, which lies like a crest in the furrow under the left foot after the plough, be over-turned, and then shall the furrow be narrow enough.”]

[Footnote 87:  Farrago was a mixture of refuse far, or spelt, with vetch, sown thick and cut green to be fed to cattle in the process now called soiling.  The English word “forage” comes from this Latin original.]

[Footnote 88:  Spanish American engineers today insert in their specifications for lumber the stipulation that it be cut on the wane of the moon.  The rural confidence in the influence of the moon upon the life of a farm still persists vigorously:  thus as Pliny (H.N.  XVIII, 75) counselled that one wean a colt only when the moon is on the wane, so it will be found that the moon is consulted before a colt is weaned on most American farms today:  for that may be safely done, says the rural oracle, only when the moon’s sign, as given in the almanack, corresponds with a part of the almanack’s “moon’s man” or “anatomic” at or below the knees, i.e., when the moon is in one or the other of the signs Pisces, Capricornus or Aquarius:  but never at a time of day when the moon is in its “Southing.”]