puts off work is always at hand-grips with ruin.

(ll. 414-447) When the piercing power and sultry heat of the sun
abate, and almighty Zeus sends the autumn rains (12), and men's
flesh comes to feel far easier, -- for then the star Sirius
passes over the heads of men, who are born to misery, only a
little while by day and takes greater share of night, -- then,
when it showers its leaves to the ground and stops sprouting, the
wood you cut with your axe is least liable to worm. Then
remember to hew your timber: it is the season for that work. Cut
a mortar (13) three feet wide and a pestle three cubits long, and
an axle of seven feet, for it will do very well so; but if you
make it eight feet long, you can cut a beetle (14) from it as
well. Cut a felloe three spans across for a waggon of ten
palms' width. Hew also many bent timbers, and bring home a
plough-tree when you have found it, and look out on the mountain
or in the field for one of holm-oak; for this is the strongest
for oxen to plough with when one of Athena's handmen has fixed in
the share-beam and fastened it to the pole with dowels. Get two
ploughs ready work on them at home, one all of a piece, and the
other jointed. It is far better to do this, for if you should
break one of them, you can put the oxen to the other. Poles of
laurel or elm are most free from worms, and a share-beam of oak
and a plough-tree of holm-oak. Get two oxen, bulls of nine
years; for their strength is unspent and they are in the prime of
their age: they are best for work. They will not fight in the
furrow and break the plough and then leave the work undone. Let
a brisk fellow of forty years follow them, with a loaf of four
quarters (15) and eight slices (16) for his dinner, one who will
attend to his work and drive a straight furrow and is past the