226Now I will tell by what means you may recognise each kind. 227If you ask whether it is loose or unusually dense — since one favours corn and the other Bacchus, the dense rather Ceres, all the loosest Lyaeus — first you will pick out a place with your eyes, and have a pit sunk deep in solid ground, and you will put all the earth back again and level the sand on top with your feet. 233If it falls short, the soil will be loose, and better suited to cattle and kindly vines; 234but if it refuses to go back into its place, and earth is left over when the pits are filled, the field is dense; 236expect reluctant clods and thick ridges, and break the land with strong bullocks.
238But salty ground, and that which is called bitter, unlucky for crops — it neither grows gentle with ploughing, nor keeps its breed for Bacchus or their names for fruits — will give a test like this: take down from the smoky roofs baskets of close-woven wicker and the strainers of the wine-presses; 243here let that bad soil and sweet water from the springs be trodden in to the brim; 244all the water, to be sure, will struggle out, and big drops will pass through the wicker; 246but the taste will give plain evidence, and with its bitter sensation will twist awry the mouths of those who try it. 248Likewise, which land is rich we learn in this way at last: it never crumbles when tossed in the hands, but grows sticky like pitch on the fingers as it is held.
251Moist land nourishes taller grass, and is itself more luxuriant than is right. 252Ah, may that land not be too fertile for me, nor show itself too strong in the first ears! 254Heavy land betrays itself silently by its own weight, and so does light. 255It is easy to tell in advance by the eye which is black, and what colour each has. 256But to search out the accursed cold is difficult: only pitch-pines and harmful yews, or sometimes black ivy, reveal its traces.