Varro’s statement that at Byzacium in Africa wheat yielded 100 for one, which Pliny (II.N. XVIII, 23) increases to 150 for one, means from 175 to 260 bushels per acre, seems incredible to us, but is confirmed by the testimony of agricultural practice in Palestine.  Isaac claimed to reap an hundred fold, and the parable of the Sower alludes to yields of 30, 60 and 100 fold.

Harte Essays on Husbandry, 91, says that the average yield in England in the middle of the eighteenth century was seven for one, though he records the case of an award by the Dublin Society in 1763 to an Irish gentleman who raised 50 bushels of wheat from a single peck of seed!  Harte was a parson, but apparently he did not bring the same unction into his agriculture as did the Rev. Robert Herrick to the husbandry of his Devonshire glebe, a century earlier.  In Herrick’s Thanksgiving to God for his House he sings: 

  “Lord, ’tis thy plenty dropping hand
    That soils my land
  And giv’st me for my bushel sown
    Twice ten for one. 
  Thou makst my teeming hen to lay
    Her egg each day: 
  Besides my healthful ewes to bear
    Me twins each year.”]

[Footnote 96:  As the Gallic header here described by Varro is the direct ancestor of our modern marvellous self-binding harvester, it is of interest to rehearse the other ancient references to it.

Pliny (H.  N.  XVIII, 72) says: 

“In the vast domains of the provinces of Gaul a large hollow frame armed with teeth and supported on two wheels is driven through the standing corn, the beasts being yoked behind it, the result being that the ears are torn off and fall within the frame.”  Palladius (VII, 2) goes more into detail: 

“The people of the more level regions of Gaul have devised a method of harvesting quickly and with a minimum of human labour, for thereby a single ox is made to bear the burden of the entire harvest.  A cart is constructed on two low wheels and is furnished with a square body, of which the side boards are adjusted to slope upward and outward to make greater capacity.  The front of the body is left open and there across the width of the cart are set a series of lance shaped teeth spaced to the distance between the grain stalks and curved upward.  Behind the cart two short shafts are fashioned, like those of a litter, where the ox is yoked and harnessed with his head towards the cart:  for this purpose it is well to use a well broken and sensible ox, which will not push ahead of his driver.  When this machine is driven through the standing grain all the heads are stripped by the teeth and are thrown back and collected in the body of the cart, the straw being left standing.  The machine is so contrived that the driver can adjust its height to that of the grain.  Thus with little going and coming and in a few short hours the entire harvest is made.  This method is available in level or prairie countries and to those who do not need to save the straw.”