“But of all the legumes, alfalfa is the best, because, when once it is sown, it lasts ten years:  because it can be mowed four times, and even six times, a year:  because it improves the soil:  because all lean cattle grow fat by feeding upon it:  because it is a remedy for sick beasts:  because a jugerum (two-thirds of an acre) of it will feed three horses plentifully for a year.  We will teach you the manner of cultivating it, as follows:  The land which you wish to set in alfalfa the following spring should be broken up about the Kalends of October, so that it may mellow through the entire winter.  About the Kalends of February harrow it thoroughly, remove all the stones and break up the clods.  Later, about the month of March, harrow it for the third time.  When you have so got the land in good order, lay it off after the manner of a garden, in beds ten feet wide and fifty feet long, so that it may be possible to let in water by the paths, and access on every side may be had by the weeders.  Then cover the beds with well rotted manure.  At last, about the end of April, sow plentifully so that a single measure (cyanthus) of seed will cover a space ten feet long and five wide.  When you have done this brush in the seed with wooden rakes:  this is most important for otherwise the sprouts will be withered by the sun.  After the sowing no iron tool should touch the beds; but, as I have said, they should be cultivated with wooden rakes, and in the same manner they should be weeded so that no foreign grass can choke out the young alfalfa.  The first cutting should be late, when the seed begins to fall:  afterwards, when it is well rooted, you can cut it as young as you wish to feed to the stock.  Feed it at first sparingly, until the stock becomes accustomed to it, for it causes bloat and excess of blood.  After cutting, irrigate the beds frequently, and after a few days, when the roots begin to sprout, weed out all other kinds of grass.  Cultivated in this way alfalfa can be mowed six times a year, and it will last for ten years.”]

[Footnote 94:  See the explanation of what the Romans meant by terra varia in the note on Cato V. ante, p. 40.]

[Footnote 95:  It is interesting to note from the statements in the text that in Varro’s time the Roman farmer in Italy both sowed and reaped substantially the same amount of wheat as does the American farmer today.  Varro says that the Romans sowed five modii of wheat to the jugerum and reaped on the maximum fifteen for one.  As the modius was nearly the equivalent of our peck, the Roman allowance for sowing corresponds to the present American practice of sowing seven pecks of wheat to the acre:  and on this basis a yield of 26 bushels to the acre, which is not uncommon in the United States, is the equivalent of the Roman harvest of fifteen for one.

It is fair to the average Italian farmer of the present day who is held up by the economists to scorn because he does not produce more than eleven bushels of wheat to the acre, to record that in Columella’s time, when agriculture had declined as compared with Varro’s experience, the average yield of grain in many parts of Italy did not exceed four for one (Columella, III, 3), or say seven and a half bushels to the acre.