Roman Farm Management Part 19

"For food they are given wheat, barley, grape marc, and some times even lobsters and other such aquatic animals. The pond in the enclosure should be fed with a large head of water so that it may be kept always fresh.

"There are other kinds of similar birds, like teals and coots which may be fed in the same way.

"Some even keep partridges, which, as Archelaus writes, conceive when they hear the voice of the male bird. By reason of the natural abundance and the delicacy of their flesh, these last are not crammed like those domestic fowls I have described, but they are fattened by feeding in the ordinary way.

"And now, as I think that I have completed the first act of the drama of the barn yard, I am done."

_Of rabbits_

XII. At this point Appius returned and, after an exchange of questions and answers as to what had been said and done during his absence, he said: "Here beginneth the second act of those industries which are wont to be practised at a villa, namely of those enclosures which are still known as _leporaria_ from their ancient special designation.

Today a warren no longer means an acre or two in which hares are kept, but some times forests of vast extent in which troops of red deer and roe deer are enclosed. Q. Fulvius Lippinus is said to have forty jugera enclosed in the neighbourhood of Tarquinii[192] where he keeps not only those animals I have named but wild sheep as well. Parks of still larger extent are found in the territory of Statonia (in Etruria) and in certain other places: indeed, in transalpine Gaul T.

Pompeius has so great a game preserve that the enclosure is about four miles in extent.[193]

"It is the practice to keep in such enclosures not only the animals I have named, but also snail houses and bee hives and jars in which dormice are fed, but the care and the increase and the feeding of all these things are easy, except in the case of bees. Who does not know that a _leporarium_ should be enclosed with masonry walls which are at once smooth and high the one to keep out wild cats and badgers and other such beasts: the other to prevent wolves from getting over.

Within should be coverts where the hares may lurk in the day time under bushes and gra.s.s, and trees with broad spreading branches to ward off the attacks of the eagle.

"Who does not know also that if he introduces only a few hares of both s.e.xes in a short time the place will be full of them, for such is the fecundity of this quadruped that two pair are enough to stock an entire warren in a short time. Often a mother who has just had her litter is found to be big with another: indeed, Archelaus says that if you want to know how old a hare is you have only to count the number of openings in her belly, for without doubt there is one for every year of her life.

"It has recently become the practice to cram hares as well as poultry, and for this purpose they are taken out of the warren and shut up in small hutches where they are fattened. There are three kinds of hares: the first, our common Italian kind, which has short front legs and long hind legs, the upper part of the body dark coloured, the belly white, and long ears. Some say that our hare conceives a second time while it is still big. In transalpine Gaul and Macedonia they grow to a great size, but in Spain and in Italy they are not so large. The second kind is native in Gaul near the Alps, and is white all over the body: these are brought to Rome, but rarely. The third kind is native in Spain and is like our hare in every way except that it is smaller and is called rabbit (_cuniculus_).[194] L. Aelius thinks that the hare (_lepus_) gets his name from his swiftness, as it were that he is light of foot (_levipes_), but I think the name is derived from the ancient Greek, because the Aeolians of Boeotia call him [Greek: leporis]. The rabbits derive their latin name of _cuniculi_ from the habit of making underground burrows to hide in [for _cuniculus_ is a Spanish word for mine]. If possible you should have all these three kinds in your warren. I am sure you already have the first two kinds,"

Apius added, turning to me, "and, as you were so many years in Spain doubtless some rabbits followed you home.""

_Of game preserves_

XIII. Then addressing himself again to Axius, Appius continued:

"You know, of course, that wild boars are kept in game parks, and that those which are brought in wild are fattened with as little trouble as the tame ones which are born in the park, for you have doubtless seen at the farm near Tusculum, which Varro here bought from M. Pupius Piso, wild boars and roe bucks a.s.semble at the sound of the trumpet to be fed at regular hours, when from a platform, the keeper scatters mast to the wild boars and vetch or some such forage to the roe bucks."

"I saw this done," put in Axius, "more dramatically when I was a visitor at the villa of Q. Hortensius in the country near Laurentum.

He has there a wood of more than fifty jugera in extent, all enclosed, but it might better be called a [Greek: theriotropheion] than a warren; there on high ground he caused his dinner table to be spread, and while we supped Hortensius gave orders that Orpheus be summoned: when he came, arrayed in his long robe, with a cithara in his hands, he was desired to sing. At that moment a trumpet was sounded and at once Orpheus was surrounded by a large audience of deer and wild boars and other quadrupeds: it seemed to be not less agreeable a spectacle than the shows of game, without African beasts, which the Aediles provide in the Circus Maximus."

_Of snails_

XIV. And turning to Merula, Axius continued: "Appius has lightened your task, my dear Merula, so far as concerns the matter of game, and briefly the second act of our drama may be brought to an end, for I do not seek to learn any thing about snails and dormice, which is all that is left on the programme, for there can be no great trouble in keeping them."

"It is not so simple as you seem to think, my dear Axius," replied Merula, "for a place suitable for keeping snails[195] I must be not only in the open air but entirely surrounded by water, otherwise you will be kept running not only after the children but also the parents which you have supplied for breeding."

"In other words," said I, "they must be enclosed by water to save the maintenance of a slave catcher."

"A place which is not baked by the sun and on which the dew remains is preferable," continued Merula. "If the place you use for your snails is not supplied with dew naturally, as often is the case in sunny situations, and there is no available shady recess, such as is found under rocks or hills whose feet are laved by a lake or a stream, then you must supply dew artificially. This may be done by leading into the snailery a pipe on the end of which is fixed a rose nozzle, through which water is forced against a rock so that it scatters in spray. The problem of feeding snails is small, for they supply themselves without help, finding what they require as they creep over the level ground and also while clinging to the sides of a wall, if no running water prevents their access to it. On the hucksters' stands they keep alive a long time, as it were chewing their own cud, all that is done for them being to supply a few laurel leaves and scatter a little bran over them: so a cook never knows whether he is cooking them alive or dead.

"There are many kinds of snails, such as the small white ones, which come from Reate: the large variety which are imported from Illyric.u.m, and the medium size which come from Africa: but they vary in size in certain localities of each of those countries. Thus, there is found in Africa a variety which are called _solitannae_ of so great size that their sh.e.l.ls will hold ten quarts:[196] and so in the other countries I have named they are found together of all sizes. They produce an innumerable progeny, which at first are very small and soft but develop their hard sh.e.l.l with time. If you have large islands in the enclosure you may expect a rich haul from your snails.

"Snails are fattened by placing them in a jar smeared with boiled must and corn meal, on which they feed, and pierced with holes to admit the air, but they are naturally hardy."

_Of dormice_

XV. "Dormice[197] are preserved on a different systern than snails, for while the one is confined by barriers of water, the other is kept in by a wall which must be coated on the inside with smooth stone or stucco to prevent their escape. Young nut trees should be planted in the enclosure, and when these are not bearing, mast and chestnuts should be thrown in to the dormice, for that is what makes them fat. Roomy cages should be provided for them in which to rear their young.[198] Little water is necessary, for dormice do not require much water, but on the contrary affect dry places. They are fattened in jars which are usually kept indoors. The potters make these jars in different shapes, but with paths for the dormice to use contrived on the sides and a hollow to hold their food, which consists of mast, walnuts and chestnuts.[199] Covers are placed on the jars and there in the dark the dormice are fattened."

_Of bees_

XVI. "It remains now," said Appius, "to rehea.r.s.e the third and last act of our drama of the husbandry of the steading and to discuss the keeping of fishes."

"The third, indeed," exclaimed Axius, "shall we deprive ourselves of honey because in your youth you never drank mead in your own house, such was your practice of frugality?"

"He speaks the truth," said Appius, to us, "for I was indeed left a poor orphan with two brothers and two sisters to provide for, and it was not until I had married one of them to Lucullus without portion and he had named me his heir that I began to drink mead in my own house and to supply it to my household: but there never was a day when I did not offer it to all my guests. But apart from that, it has been my fortune, not yours,[200] Axius, to have known these winged creatures whom nature has endowed so richly with industry and art, and that you may appreciate that I know more than you do of their almost incredible natural art, listen to what I am to say. It will then be for Merula to develop the practice of the bee keeper, or, as the Greeks call it, [Greek: melittourgia], as methodically as he has his other subjects.

"To begin then,[201] bees are generated partly by other bees and partly from the decaying carcase of an ox: so Archelaus in one of his epigrams calls them

'flitting offspring of decaying beef,'

and else where he says,

'wasps spring from horses, bees from calves.'

"Bees are not of a solitary habit like eagles, but are of a social nature, like men, a characteristic they share with daws, but not for the same reason, for bees live in colonies, the better to work and build, while daws congregate for gossip. Thus the life of a bee is one of intelligence and art, for man has learned from them to manufacture, to build, and to store his food: three occupations which are not the same but are diverse in their nature, for it is one thing to provide food, another to manufacture wax and honey, and still another to build a house. Has not each cell in a honey comb six sides, or as many as a bee has feet, the art of which arrangement appears in the teaching of the geometricians that of all polygons the hexagon covers the largest area within a circle.[202] Bees feed out of doors, but it is at home that they manufacture that which is the sweetest of all things, acceptable to G.o.ds and men alike: for honey comb is offered on the altars and honey is served at the beginning of a dinner and again at dessert.

"Bees have inst.i.tutions like our own, consisting of royalty, government and organized society. Cleanliness in all things is their aim: and so they never alight in any place where there is filth or an evil odour, or even where there is a strong savour of such an unguent as we may consider agreeable. For the same reason if one who approaches them is covered with perfume,[203] they do not lick him as flies do, but they sting him, and by the same token no one ever sees bees crawling on meat and blood and grease, as flies do. And so they only settle in places of sweet savour. They do a minimum of damage because in their harvesting they leave what they touch none the worse.[204] They are not so cowardly as not to resist who ever attempts to disturb them, and yet they are fully conscious of their own weakness. They are called the Winged Servants of the Muses, because when they swarm they are quickly brought together by the music of cymbals and the clapping of hands: and as men a.s.sign Helicon and Olympus to be the haunts of the Muses, so nature has attributed the flowery and uncultivated mountains to the bees. They follow their king[205] wheresoever he goes, supporting him when he is tired and even taking him upon their backs if he is unable to fly, so do they wish to serve him.[206] As they are not idlers themselves, so do they hate those who are, and thus driving out the drones, they exclude them from the hive, because they are of no service but merely consume honey: and it happens that a few bees, buzzing with wrath, will drive out a number of drones.

"They smear every thing about the entrance to the hive with a gum which is found between the cells which the Greeks call [Greek: erithakae].

They live under the discipline of an army, taking turns in resting and all doing their equal share of work, and they send out colonies and carry out the orders of their leaders, given with the voice, but as it were with a trumpet: and in like manner they have signs of peace and of war.

"But, Merula, now in my course I pa.s.s on the torch to you, as our Axius here is doubtless languis.h.i.+ng while he has listened to all this natural history, for I have said nothing of profit."

"I do not know," said Merula, "whether what I can say on the subject of the profit to be derived from bees will satisfy you, Axius, but I have as my authorities not only Seius, who takes five thousand pounds of honey every year from the hives he leases,[207] but also our friend Varro here, for I have heard him tell of two brothers Veiani, from the Falerian territory, whom he had under his command in Spain and who, although their father left them only a small house with a curtilage of not exceeding a jugerum in extent, nevertheless made themselves rich.

They set bee hives all about the house and planted part of the land in a garden and filled up the rest with thyme and clover and that bee plant known to us as _apiastrum_, though some call it [Greek: meliphullon], others [Greek: mellissophullon] and still others _melittaena_: and by this means they were wont to derive, as they estimated, an average income of not less than ten thousand sesterces per annum from honey; but they did this by being willing to wait until they could sell at their own time and price rather than by forcing the market."

"Tell me," exclaimed Axius, "where and how I should establish a bee-stand to make such a handsome profit."

"The apiary," replied Merula, "which some call by the Greek names [Greek: melitton] and [Greek: melittotropheion], and others _mellarium_, should preferably be placed near the house[208] in a location where there is no echo (for such sounds are deemed to put them to flight, as timid men are by the din of a battle) and where the temperature is mild, exposed neither to the heat of summer nor the cold of winter, giving preferably to the Southeast and near of access to places where their food is abundant and there is a supply of fresh water. If there is no natural supply of food available you should plant such things as best serve bees for pasture, namely: roses, thyme, bee balm,[209] poppies, beans, lentils, peas, basil, gladiolus, alfalfa, and especially clover which is of great service to the bees which are sick, for it begins to bloom at the vernal equinox and lasts until that of autumn. As clover is the best food for sick bees, so thyme is the best for making honey, and it is because Sicily abounds in good thyme that it takes the palm for producing honey. On this account some men bruise thyme in a mortar and mix warm water with it and then spray all their nursery plants with it for the sake of the bees.

"The hives should be set as near the house as convenient: some men even put them under the very portico for greater safety. Hives are made in various shapes and sizes and of different material;[210] thus some make them round out of wicker work: others of frame covered with bark: others use hollow tree trunks: others vessels of pottery: some even build them square out of rods, allowing about three feet in length and a foot in height, but these dimensions should be reduced where you have not enough bees to fill a hive of that size, for fear that the bees might become discouraged by too large an empty s.p.a.ce.

"The bee hive derives its name _alvus_, which is the same as our word for belly, from the fact that it holds food, that is to say, honey; and it is on this a.n.a.logy that hives are usually shaped to imitate the form of the belly, small in the waist and bulging out below. When the hives are made of wicker work they should be coated evenly within and without with ox dung[211] so that the bees may not be driven away by the roughness of their roof. The hives should be so ordered under the shelter of a wall that they may not be disturbed nor touch one another when arranged in ranks, for it is the practice to place hives in two and some times three separated ranks, but the opinion is that it is better to reduce the ranks to two than to increase them to four. In the middle of the hive small openings are made on the right and the left to serve as entrances for the bees, and on top is placed a practicable cover, which may be removed to give access to the honey comb. This is best when made of bark, and worst of pottery, because that is strongly affected both by the cold of winter and the heat of summer. In spring and summer the bee keeper should inspect each hive at least three times a month, fumigating them lightly, cleaning and throwing out dirt and worms. At the same time he should take precautions to keep down the number of princes, for they keep the bees from work by stirring up sedition. There are said to be three kinds of royalties among the bees: the black, the red and the mottled, or, as Menecrates writes, two: the black and the mottled: and as the latter is the better it behooves the bee keeper, when he finds both kinds in a hive, to kill the black one, as he is forever playing politics[212]

against the other king, whereby the hive must suffer, for inevitably one of the kings will flee or be driven out, in either case taking his party with him.

"Of working bees the small round mottled variety is considered the best. The drone, or, as some call him, the thief,[213] is black with a large belly. The wasp, which has some resemblance to a bee, is not, however, a fellow labourer, but attacks the bees with his sting, wherefore the bees keep him at a distance.

"Bees are themselves distinguished as wild and tame. I call those wild which feed in the forests, and those tame which feed in cultivated places. The forest bees are smaller in size and hairy but better workmen.

"In buying bees it behooves the purchaser to see whether they are well or ailing. The signs of health are a thick swarm, well groomed appearance and a hive being filled in a workmanlike manner. The signs of lack of condition on the other hand are a hairy and bristling appearance and a dusty coat, unless this last is caused by a pressure of work, for under such circ.u.mstances they often wear themselves down and become thin.

"If the hives are to be transferred from one place to another it is necessary to choose a fit time to make the move and a suitable place to receive them. As to time, spring is preferable to winter because in winter they have difficulty in adjusting themselves to a new location and so often run away, as they do also if you move them from a good location to a place where proper pasture is not available. Nor is a transfer from one hive to another in the same place to be undertaken carelessly, but that to which the bees are to be transferred should be rubbed with bee balm, which will serve as a bait for them, and some pieces of honey comb should be placed in it, not far from the entrances, for fear that the bees might run away if they found the larder of their new home empty.

"Menecrates says that bees contract a malady of the bowels from their first spring pasture on the blossoms of the almond and the cornel cherry and are cured by giving them urine to drink.[214]