§281. Before passing to the more important matters of bread, wine, and oil, it may be well to mention a few articles that are still in general use. The Romans used freely the products of the dairy, milk, cream, curds, whey, and cheese. They drank the milk of sheep and goats as well as that of cows, and made cheese of the three kinds of milk. The cheese from ewes' milk was thought more digestible though less palatable than that made of cows' milk, while cheese from goats' milk was more palatable but less digestible. It is remarkable that they had no knowledge of butter except us a plaster for wounds. Honey took the place of sugar on the table and in cooking, for the Romans had only a botanical knowledge of the sugar cane. Salt was at first obtained by the evaporation of sea-water, but was afterwards mined. Its manufacture was a monopoly of the government, and care was taken always to keep the price low. It was used not only for seasoning, but also as a preservative agent. Vinegar was made from grape juice. In the list of articles of food unknown to the Romans we must put tea and coffee along with the orange, tomato, potato, butter, and sugar already mentioned. §282. Cereals.--The word _frūmentum_[2] was a general term applied to any of the many sorts of grain that were grown for food. Of those now in use barley, oats, rye, and wheat were known to the Romans, though rye was not cultivated and oats served only as feed for cattle. Barley was not much used, for it was thought to lack nutriment, and therefore to be unfit for laborers. In very ancient times another grain, spelt (_far_), had been grown extensively, but it had gradually gone out of use except for the sacrificial cake that had given its name to the confarreate ceremony of marriage (§82). In classical times wheat was the staple grain grown for food, not differing much from that which we use to-day. It was usually planted in the fall, though on some soils it would mature as a spring wheat. After the farming land of Italy was diverted to other purposes (parks, pleasure grounds, game preserves: see §§145, 146), wheat had to be imported from the provinces, first from Sicily, then from Africa and Egypt, the home supply being inadequate to the needs of the teeming population. [Footnote 2: The word _frūmentum_ occurs fifty-five times in the "Gallic War," meaning any kind of grain that happened to be grown for food in the country in which Caesar was campaigning at the time. The word "corn" used to translate it in our school editions is the worst possible, because to the schoolboy the word "corn" means a particular kind of grain, and a kind at that which was unknown to the Romans. The general word "grain" is much better for translation purposes.] [Illustration: FIGURE 107. POUNDING GRAIN]