c mycorrhiza,--but the Romans did not! Nevertheless their
empirical practice of soil improvement with legumes was quite as good
as ours. Varro (I, 23) explains the Roman method of green manuring
more fully than Cato. Columella (II, 13) insists further that if the
hay is saved the stubble of legumes should be promptly ploughed for he
says the roots will evaporate their own moisture and continue to pump
the land of its fertility unless they are at once turned over.

If the Romans followed this wise advice they were better farmers than
most of us today, for we are usually content to let the stubble dry
out before ploughing.]

[Footnote 34: Was this ensilage? The ancients had their silo pits, but
they used them chiefly as granaries, and as such they are described,
by Varro (I, 57, 63), by Columella (I, 6), and by Pliny (XVIII, 30,
73).]

[Footnote 35: The extravagant American farmer has not yet learned
to feed the leaves of trees, but in older and more economical
civilizations the practice is still observed.]

[Footnote 36: Amurca was the dregs of olive oil. Cato recommends its
use for many purposes in the economy of the farm, for a moth proof
(XCVIII), as a relish for cattle (CIII), as a fertilizer (CXXX), and
as an anointment for the threshing floor to kill weevil (XCI).]

[Footnote 37: There is a similar remedy for scratches in horses, which
is traditional in the cavalry service today, and is extraordinarily
efficacious.]

[Footnote 38: Cf. Pliny _H.N._ XVII, 267 and Fraser, _The Golden
Bough_, XI, 177. The principle is one of magical homeopathy: as the
split reed, when bound together, may cohere and heal by the medicine
of the incantation, so may the broken bone.]

[Footnote 39: These examples will serve to illustrate how far Cato's
veterinary science was behind his agriculture, and what a curious
confusion of native good sense and traditional superstition there was
in his method of caring for his live stock. On questions of preventing
malady he had the wisdom of experience, but malady once arrived he was
a simple pagan. There was a notable advance in the Roman knowledge of
how to treat sick cattle in the century after Cato. Cf. Varro, II, 5.

The words of the incantations themselves are mere sound and fury
signifying nothing, like the "counting out" rhythms used by children
at their games.]

[Footnote 40: Cato gives many recipes of household as well as
agricultural economy. Out of respect for the pure food l