How they preserved their Corn so long in _Ægypt_ may seem hard unto Northern and moist Climates, except we consider the many ways of preservation practised by antiquity, and also take in that handsome account of _Pliny_; What Corn soever is laid up in the Ear, it taketh no harm keep it as long as you will; although the best and most assured way to keep Corn is in Caves and Vaults under ground, according to the practice of _Cappadocia_ and _Thracia_.
In _Ægypt_ and _Mauritania_ above all things they look to this, that their Granaries stand on high ground; and how drie so ever their Floor be, they lay a course of Chaff betwixt it and the ground. Besides, they put up their Corn in Granaries and Binns together with the Ear. And _Varro_ delivereth that Wheat laid up in that manner will last fifty years; Millet an hundred; and Beans so conserved in a Cave of _Ambracia_, were known to last an hundred and twenty years; that is, from the time of King _Pyrrhus_, unto the Pyratick War under the conduct of _Pompey_.
More strange it may seem how, after seven years, the Grains conserved should be fruitfull for a new production. For it is said that _Joseph delivered Seed unto the Ægyptians, to sow their Land for the eighth year_: and Corn after seven years is like to afford little or no production, according to _Theophrastus_;[213] _Ad Sementem semen anniculum optimum putatur, binum deterius et trinum; ultra sterile fermè est, quanquam ad usum cibarium idoneum_.
Yet since, from former exemplifications, Corn may be made to last so long, the fructifying power may well be conceived to last in some good proportion, according to the region and place of its conservation, as the same _Theophrastus_ hath observed, and left a notable example from _Cappadocia_, where Corn might be kept sixty years, and remain fertile at forty; according to his expression thus translated; _In Cappadociæ loco quodam petra dicto, triticum ad quadraginta annos fœcundum est, at ad sementem percommodum durare proditum est, sexagenos aut septuagenos ad usum cibarium servari posse idoneum._ The situation of that Conservatory, was, as he delivereth, ἱψηλὸν, εὔπνουν, εὔαυρον, _high, airy and exposed to several favourable winds_. And upon such consideration of winds and ventilation, some conceive the Ægyptian Granaries were made open, the Country being free from rain. Howsoever it was, that contrivance could not be without some hazard:[214] for the great Mists and Dews of that Country might dispose the Corn unto corruption.