in the sun and bowls of water placed nearby and the weevil will
swarm on this water and drown themselves. Those who store their grain
in the pits which are called silos should not attempt to bring out the
grain for some time after the silo has been opened because there is
danger of suffocation in entering a recently opened silo. The corn
which, during the harvest time, you stored in the ear and which you
contemplate using for food, should be brought out during the winter to
be crushed and ground in the grist mill.

_Of condensing amurca_

LXIV. When it flows from the oil mill, amurca is a watery fluid full
of dregs. It is the custom to store it in this state in earthen jars
and fifteen days later to skim off the scum from the top and transfer
this to other jars, an operation which is repeated at regular
intervals twelve times during the following six months, taking care
that the last skimming is done on the wane of the moon. Then it
is boiled in a copper kettle over a slow fire until it is reduced
two-thirds, when it may be drawn off for use.

_Of racking wine_

LXV. When the must is stored in the vat to make wine, it should not be
racked off while it is fermenting nor until this process has advanced
so far that the wine may be considered to be made. If you wish to
drink old wine, it is not made until a year is completed; when it is a
year old, then draw it out. But if your vineyard contains that kind
of grape which turns sour early, you should eat the fruit, or sell it
before the succeeding vintage. There are kinds of wine, like that of
Falernum, which improve the longer you keep them.

_Of preserved olives_

LXVI. If you attempt to eat white olives immediately after you have
put them up and before they are cured your palate will reject them on
account of their bitterness (and the same is true of the black olive)
unless you dip them in salt to make them palatable.

_Of nuts, dates and figs_

LXVII. The sooner you use nuts, dates and figs after they have been
stored, the more palatable they will be, for by keeping figs lose
their flavour, dates rot and nuts dry up.

_Of stored fruits_

LXVIII. Fruits which are strung, such as grapes, apples and sorbs show
by their appearance when they may be taken down for use, for by their
change of colour and shrinking they reveal themselves as destined to
the garbage pile unless they are eaten in time. Sorbs which have been
laid by when they are already dead-ri