[2898] This manure is still extensively employed in Flanders, Switzerland, and the vicinity of Paris. In the north of England it is mixed with ashes, and laid on the fields. There was an old prejudice, that vegetation grown with it has a fetid odour, but it has for some time been looked upon as exploded.
[2899] Or urine. In the vicinity of Paris, a manure is employed called urate, of which urine forms the basis.
[2900] Fée seems to think that this passage means that the bad smell of urine is imparted to it by the wine that is drunk. It is difficult to say what could have been the noxious qualities imparted by wine to urine as a manure, and Pliny probably would have been somewhat at a loss to explain his meaning.
[2901] In lapse of time, if exposed to the air, it is reduced to the state of humus or mould.
[2902] Consisting of lime mixed with vegetable ashes.
[2903] De Re Rust. i. 38.
[2904] “Herbas.” This would appear to mean grass only here; though Fée seems to think that it means various kinds of herbs.
[2905] This method is sometimes adopted in England with buckwheat, trefoil, peas, and other leguminous plants; and in the south of France lupines are still extensively used in the same manner, after the usage of the ancient Romans here described. The French also employ, but more rarely, for the same purpose, the large turnip, vetches, peas, trefoil, Windsor beans, sanfoin, lucerne, &c.; but it is found a very expensive practice.
[2906] De Re Rust. 37.
[2907] “Frondam putidam.” Fée thinks that this expression is used in reference to the “ebulum,” dane-wort, wall-wort, or dwarf-elder, previously mentioned.