257Not in vain do we watch the settings and risings of the stars, and the year divided equally into four different seasons. 259If ever cold rain keeps the farmer indoors, he is able to get ready at leisure many things that would soon have to be hurried under a clear sky: the ploughman hammers out the hard tooth of the blunted share, hollows troughs from a tree, or has stamped a mark on his flock or numbers on his heaps. 264Others sharpen stakes and two-pronged forks, and prepare Amerian bands for the pliant vine. 266Now let a light basket be woven of bramble twigs; now parch the grain by the fire, now crush it with stone.
268Indeed even on holy days divine and human law permit certain work; 269no scruple has forbidden leading off streams, setting a hedge before the crop, laying snares for birds, burning brambles, and plunging the bleating flock in the healthful river. 273Often the driver of a slow donkey loads its flanks with oil or cheap fruit, and coming back brings from town a dressed millstone or a lump of black pitch.