As the Greeks well understood the practice of fallowing, their lands were then, as now, suffered to regain their strength by lying for a time idle;[[1706]] and it seems to have been as much their custom as it is still of their descendants,[[1707]] for the poor, at least, to roam over these fallow grounds, collecting nettles,[[1708]] mallows, the sow-thistle or jagged lettuce,[[1709]] dandelions, sea-purslain, stoches, hartwort, briony sprouts, gentle-rocket, usually found in the environs of towns, and about the courts of houses, gardens, and ruins, with other wild herbs for salads, or to be eaten as vegetables.
The rules observed in sowing were numerous, and, in many instances, not a little curious. As a matter of course, they were careful to adapt the grain to the soil:[[1710]] thus rich plains were appropriated to wheat, and in the intervals cropped with vegetables; middling grounds to barley;[[1711]] while poor and hungry spots were given up to lentils, vetches, lupins, and such other pulse as were cultivated on a large scale. Beans and peas, however, were supposed to thrive best in fat and level lands. The principal sowing-time[[1712]] was in autumn; for, as soon as the equinoctial rains had moistened the earth, the sower immediately went forth to sow, committing to the ground the hopes of the future year. The best time for scattering wheat they placed somewhere in November, about the setting of the constellation called the Crown. They were careful in this operation to avoid the time when the south wind[[1713]] blew, and, generally, all cold and raw weather, as it rendered the earth ungenial, and little apt to fructify that which was entrusted to it. Great skill was supposed to be required in scattering the seed: in the first place, that it should be equally distributed; and, secondly, that none should fall between the horns of the oxen, superstition having taught them the belief that such grain, which they denominated Kerasbolos,[[1714]] if it sprang up at all, would produce corn which could neither be baked nor eaten. A favourite sowing sieve was made of wolf’s-hide, pierced with thirty holes as large as the tips of the fingers. In later ages much virtue was supposed to reside in the barbarous term Phriel,[[1715]] which they accordingly wrote on the plough. The choice of grains for sowing necessarily afforded much exercise[[1716]] to their ingenuity: seed wheat, they thought, should be of a rich gold colour, full, smooth, and solid; barley, white and heavy; both not exceeding one year old, for they quickly deteriorated, and, after the third year, would not they supposed grow. This, however, was an error, since barley has been known to preserve its vitality upwards of two thousand years.
It was customary often to renew seed by sowing the produce of mountains on plains; of dry places in moist, and the contrary.[[1717]] To try the comparative value of different qualities of grain[[1718]] they took a sample of each, and sowed the whole in separate patches of the same bed, a little before the rising of the Dog-star. If the produce of any of these samples withered, through the influence they supposed of Syrius, the wheat which it represented was rejected. As corn when committed to the earth is exposed to numerous enemies, they had recourse to a variety of contrivances for its preservation: to protect it from birds, mice, and ants,[[1719]] they steeped it in the juice of houseleeks, or mixed it with hellebore and cypress leaves, and scattered it out of a circle, or sprinkled it with water into which river crabs had been thrown for eight days, or with powdered hartshorn or ivory. Not satisfied with these precautions, they had likewise recourse to scarecrows,[[1720]] fixing up long reeds here and there in the fields, with dead birds suspended to them by the feet. This long list of contrivances they closed by a spell: taking a live toad, they carried it round the field by night, after which they shut it up carefully in a jar, which they buried in the middle of the grounds.
When the corn began to spring up it was diligently weeded[[1721]] a first and a second time. They would not trust entirely, however, to the industry of their hands, but called in to their aid certain characteristic enchantments, some two or three of which may be worth describing. First, to subdue the growth of choke-weed they planted sprigs of rose-laurel, at the corner and in the middle of their fields, or set up a number of potsherds, upon which had been drawn with chalk the figure of Heracles strangling the lion. But the most effectual of all spells, was for a young woman, naked and with dishevelled hair, to take a live cock in her hands and bear him round the fields, upon which, not only would the choke-weed and the restharrow vanish,[[1722]] but all the produce of the land would turn out of a superior quality.[[1723]]
As the ancients well understood the value of hay, they took much pains in the formation and management of meadows. In the first place, all stones, stumps, bushes, and brambles,[[1724]] were diligently removed, together with whatever else might interrupt the free play of the scythe in mowing. They avoided, moreover, letting into them their droves of hogs, which were found to turn up the soil and destroy the roots of the young grass. In moist lands, too, even the larger cattle were excluded, as the holes made by their hoofs[[1725]] in sinking broke up the fine level of the turf. Old hay fields, in districts where much rain fell, grew in time to be clothed with a coating of moss,[[1726]] which some farmers sought to remove by manuring the ground with ashes; but the more scientific agriculturists ploughed them up, and took precisely the same steps as in the formation of a new meadow, that is, they sowed the ground with beans, turnips, or rape-seed, which, in the second year, were succeeded by wheat; on the third it was thoroughly cleared out, and sown with hay-seed, mingled with vetches, after which the whole field was finely levelled by the harrow.
The rules observed by them in the regulation of their hay harvest[[1727]] were, first, to mow before the grass or clover was withered, when it became less rich and nutritive; second, to beware in making the ricks, that it was neither too dry nor too damp, since in the former case it was little better than straw, and in the latter was liable to spontaneous combustion.[[1728]] It may be observed further, that clover[[1729]] was usually sown in March or April, and though commonly mown six, or at least five, times in the twelve months, did not require to be renewed in less than ten years.[[1730]]
Harvest usually commenced in Greece about the rising of the Pleiades,[[1731]] when the corn had already acquired a deep gold colour, though not yet so ripe as to fall from the ear, which in barley happens earlier than in wheat, the grain having no hose.[[1732]] Among the Romans operations were preceded by the sacrifice[[1733]] of a young sow to Ceres, with libations of wine, the burning of frankincense, and the offering of a cake to Jove, Juno, and Janus. They, at the same time, addressed their prayers to the last-mentioned gods, nearly in the following words:—“O father Janus or Jupiter, in making an oblation of this cake I offer up my prayers that thou wouldst be propitious to me and my children, my house, and my family!”[[1734]]
At Athens, as soon as the season for reaping[[1735]] had come round, those hardy citizens who lived by letting out their strength for hire,[[1736]] ranged themselves in bands in the agora, whither the farmers of the neighbourhood resorted in search of harvesters. They then, in consequence of the hot weather, proceeded half-naked[[1737]] to the fields, where, taking the sickle in hand, and separating into two divisions, they stationed themselves at either end of the piece of corn to be reaped, and began their work with vigour and emulation, each party striving to reach the centre of the field before their rivals.[[1738]] On other occasions they took advantage of the wind,[[1739]] moving along with it, whereby they were supposed to benefit considerably, avoiding the beard or chaff which it might have blown into their eyes, and having by its action the tall straw bent to their hand.
In many parts of Greece, though the practice was not general, the women joined in these labours. The reapers, as they advanced, laid the corn behind them in long lines upon the stubble, and were followed by two other classes of harvesters, one of whom bound it into sheaves which the others bore back and piled up into mows. Of the whole of these operations, together with the plenteous feast which interrupted or terminated their toils, Homer has left us a graphic picture in the Iliad:[[1740]]
There in a field ’mid lofty corn, the lusty reapers stand,