The cultivation of the fitch,[288] too, is attended with no difficulty. It requires weeding, however, more than the vetch. Like it, the fitch has certain medicinal[289] properties; for we find the fact still kept in remembrance by some letters of his, that the late Emperor Augustus was cured by its agency. Five modii will sow as much ground as a yoke of oxen can plough in a day. If sown in the month of March,[290] it is injurious, they say, to oxen: and when sown in autumn, it is apt to produce head-ache. If, however, it is put in the ground at the beginning of spring, it will be productive of no bad results. CHAP. 39. (16.)—SILICIA. Silicia,[291] or, in other words, fenugreek, is sown after a light ploughing[292] merely, the furrows being no more than some four fingers in depth; the less the pains that are bestowed upon it the better it will thrive—a singular fact that there should be anything that profits from neglect. The kinds, however, that are known as “secale” and “farrago” require harrowing only. CHAP. 40.—SECALE OR ASIA. The people of Taurinum, at the foot of the Alps, give to secale[293] the name of “asia;” it is a very inferior[294] grain, and is only employed to avert positive famine. It is prolific, but has a straw of remarkable thinness; it is also black and sombre-looking, but weighs extremely heavy. Spelt is mixed with this grain to modify its bitterness,[295] and even then it is very disagreeable to the stomach. It will grow upon any soil, and yields a hundred-fold; it is employed also as a manure for enriching the land. CHAP. 41.—FARRAGO: THE CRACCA. Farrago, a mixture made of the refuse of “far,” or spelt, is sown very thick, the vetch being sometimes mingled with it; in Africa, this mixture is sometimes made with barley. All these mixtures, however, are only intended for cattle, and the same is the case with the cracca,[296] a degenerate kind of leguminous plant. Pigeons, it is said, are so remarkably fond of this grain, that they will never leave the place where it has been given to them. CHAP. 42.—OCINUM: ERVILIA. Among the ancients there was a sort of fodder, to which Cato[297] gives the name of “ocinum;” it was employed by them to stop scouring in oxen. This was a mixture of various kinds of fodder, cut green before the frosts came on. Mamilius Sura, however, explains the term differently, and says that ten modii of beans, two of vetches, and the same quantity of ervilia,[298] were mixed and sown in autumn on a jugerum of land. He states, also, that it is a still better plan to mix some Greek oats[299] with it, the grain of which never falls to the ground; this mixture, according to him, was ocinum, and was usually sown as a food for oxen. Varro[300] informs us that it received its name on account of the celerity with which it springs up, from the Greek ὠκέως, “quickly.” CHAP. 43.—LUCERNE.