"On New Year's day, a little work of every kind was done for good luck; but then followed a time of complete relaxation. In the latter half of January, the ground was cleared of brambles, and the trimming of the vineyards completed; while the autumn-sown grain and the beans, if they were sufficiently grown, were hoed for the first time. Early trees were now grafted, and the stock was planted. Vineyards were also cultivated, and young orchards set out, grass sown and ground broken, fields manured and osier-beds renewed. Vine-sets were also transplanted, if needful and the late fruit trees grafted. "In March, the vegetable garden was prepared, the autumn grains received their second hoeing, and the spring grains were sown. In April, came weeding, sheep-washing, the setting out of new vineyards, the trimming of old vines, and the olive-grafting. "May brought the earliest mowing, and in this month the earth was first spaded up about the olive-trees, and the vineyards dug over, this latter process being repeated each month until cold weather. The olives were also trimmed, the vine-shoots nipped; in warmer latitudes the sheep were shorn, and the lupins, which had been sown as fertilizers, were ploughed in. In June the first ploughing was finished and the second done, the threshing-floor was made ready, vetches mown, beans picked, and honey taken from the hives. "Grain-harvest took place in July, and the cutting of the straw and gathering of leaves for the winter fodder of cattle. In August, figs and grapes were dried for winter use, and brakes cut for litter. "September was, _par excellence_, the month of the vintage, and then, too, turnips were planted, and the later grains harvested. In October, winter grains were sown and harrowed in, trees trimmed, and the olive-picking begun. "November was devoted to a general cleaning-up of autumn work. The making of oil was finished in December, and the vines trimmed, and we may close the brief _résumé_ of the work of the Roman agricultural year by a few general precepts from the natural history of the elder Pliny: 'He is no farmer who buys what his estate can supply. He is a bad head of a household who does by day what can be done by night--except in case of foul weather; he is a worse who does on working-days what is permitted on holidays; the worst of all is he who on a pleasant day chooses to work within doors rather than in the field."[196]