od as that which is well rotted.[69] The manure pit is more
serviceable when its sides and top are protected from the sun by
leaves and branches, for the sun draws out from the manure those
elements which the land requires; for this reason experienced farmers
sprinkle water on their manure pits, and so largely preserve its
quality: here too some establish the privies for the slaves. One
should build a barracks (what we call a _nubilarium_ because it
affords protection from the weather) and it should be large enough to
contain under its roof the entire crop of the farm: this should be
placed near the threshing floor and left open only on the side of the
threshing floor, so that while threshing you may conveniently throw
out the corn and if it begins to cloud up then quickly throw it back
again under shelter. There should be windows in this barracks on the
side most fitted for ventilation."

"A farm would be more of a farm," said Fundanius, "if the buildings
were constructed with reference to the diligence of our ancestors
rather than the luxury of their descendants. For they built for use,
while we build to gratify an unbridled luxury. Their barns were bigger
than their houses, but the contrary is often the case today. Then a
house was praised if it had a good kitchen, roomy stables and a cellar
for wine and oil fitted, according to the custom of the country, with
a floor draining into a reservoir, into which the wine can flow when,
as often happens after the new wine has been laid by, the fermentation
of the must bursts both Spanish butts and our own Italian tuns. In
like manner our ancestors equipped a country house with whatever other
things were necessary to agriculture, but now on the contrary it is
the effort to make such a house as vast and as elegant as possible,
and we vie with those palaces which men like Metellus and Lucullus
have built, to the detriment of the very state itself: in them the
effort is to contrive summer dining rooms fronting the cool east, and
those designed for use in winter facing the western sun, rather than,
as the ancients did, to adjust their windows with regard chiefly to
the cellars, since wine in casks keeps best when it is cool, while oil
craves warmth. For this reason also it would seem that the best place
to put a house is on a hill, if nothing obstructs it."

_Of the protection of farm boundaries_

_a. Fences_

XIV. "Now," resumed Scrofa, "I will speak of fences, which are