Columella•DE RE RUSTICA LIBRI XII
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I. Hactenus arvorum cultus, ut ait praestantissimus poeta. Nihil enim prohibet nos, P. Silvine, de iisdem rebus dicturos celeberrimi carminis auspicari principio. Sequitur arborum cura, quae pars rei rusticae vel maxima est.
1. Thus far the cultivation of fields, as the most preeminent poet says. For nothing prevents us, P. Silvine, we who are about to speak of these same matters, from taking our auspices from the beginning of a most celebrated song. Next follows the care of trees, which is even the greatest part of agriculture.
Sed quae non ope humana gignuntur, silvestres ac ferae sui cuiusque ingenii poma vel semina gerunt; at quibus labor adhibetur, magis aptae sunt frugibus. De eo igitur prius genere dicendum est, quod nobis alimenta praebet. Idque tripartito dividitur.
But those which are not begotten by human aid, woodland and wild, bear fruits or seeds of each one’s own nature; whereas those to which labor is applied are more apt for produce. Therefore, we must first speak of that kind which provides us with nourishment; and it is divided tripartite, into three parts.
For from a shoot either a tree proceeds, as the olive, or a shrub, as the campestral palm, or a third something, which we would not properly call either a tree or a shrub, as is the vine. This we rightly set before the other stocks, not only for the sweetness of its fruit, but also for the facility by which it answers to the care of mortals in almost every region and every declination of the world—unless, however, in an icy or a superheated one—and it proves as happy on the plains as on the hills, and in dense no less than in loose soil, often even in thin, and in rich and lean, dry and marshy. Then it alone especially, in any case, endures the intemperance of the sky, whether under a frigid axis or a burning and stormy one.
It does matter, however, of what kind or with what habit you judge the vine should be cultivated, according to the region’s condition. For the cultivation is not the same under every climate or sun, nor is there a single kind of its stock; and which is principal among them all is not easy to say, since use teaches that to each region its own is more or less apt. Nevertheless, the prudent farmer will have ascertained a kind of vine serviceable for the plain, which bears mists and hoarfrost without harm; for the hill, one which endures dryness and winds.
On a fat and fertile field he will give a slender vine, and one not by nature over-fecund; on a lean [field], a feracious one; for dense earth, a vehement vine, leafing with much material; for loose and cheerful soil, one of sparse canes; in a humid place he will know it is not right to commit fruits tender and of larger berry, but [rather] of callous and narrow berry and with frequent pips; in a dry place it is right to consign seeds of a diverse <quoque> nature. But even after these things, the master of the place will not be ignorant that the quality of the sky has more power—whether cold or hot, dry or dewy, hail-storming and windy or placid, serene or nebulous; and to a cold or a nebulous [climate] he will fit vines of two kinds, either early-ripening, whose maturity of fruits runs before winter; or of firm and hard berry, whose grapes amid the mists shed their bloom, and soon by frosts and hoarfrosts, as by the heats of others, grow mellow. To a windy and tumultuous state of sky also he will confidently commit those same tenacious and hard-berried vines.
In turn, to a warm climate he will entrust the more tender and more bountiful; to a dry one he will assign those which rot with rains or continual dews; to a dewy one, those which labor under droughts; to a hail‑prone one, those which have hard and broad leaves, so that they may better protect the fruit. For a placid and serene region refuses none: most suitably, however, that one whose grapes or berries fall quickly.
But if by wish the place for vineyards and the state of the sky is to be chosen, as Celsus most truly judges, the best soil is neither too dense nor too loose, yet nearer to loose; neither meager nor most luxuriant, yet nearest to rich; neither level-plain nor precipitous, yet like an elevated plain; neither dry nor waterlogged, yet moderately dewy, such that springs do not gush at the top nor in the depths of the earth; but so that it furnishes moisture neighboring the roots; and that moisture neither bitter nor salty, lest it corrupt the savor of the wine and restrain the increments of the green growth as if by a certain rough rust; if only we believe Virgil saying:
II. Vitis autem vel ad escam vel ad defusionem deponitur. Ad escam non expedit instituere vineta, nisi cum tam suburbanus est ager, ut ratio postulet inconditum fructum mercantibus velut pomum vendere. Quae cum talis est conditio, maxime praecoques et duracinae, tum denique purpureae et bumasti, dactylique et Rhodiae, Libycae quoque et cerauniae, nec solum quae iucunditate saporis, verum etiam quae specie commendari possint, conseri debent, ut stephanitae, ut tripedaneae, ut unciariae, ut cydonitae.
2. The vine, however, is planted either for the table or for pressing. For the table it is not expedient to establish vineyards, unless the field is so suburban that reason dictates to sell the unprepared fruit to merchants like fruit; when such is the condition, the very early-ripening and the duracinae above all, then finally the purpureae and the bumasti, the dactylicae and the Rhodiae, the Libycae too and the cerauniae, and not only those which can be commended for the pleasantness of flavor, but also those which can be commended for appearance, ought to be planted: such as the stephanitae, the tripedaneae, the unciariae, the cydonitae.
Likewise, those vines whose grapes are durable for the times of winter are stored in vessels, such as the Venunculae, and the Numisianae, recently tested for these uses. But when we have regard to wine, a vine is chosen which is strong both in fruit and in material (wood); the former contributes very much to the farmer’s returns, the latter to the long duration of the stock. Yet it is then especially excellent, if it does not leaf out too quickly, and passes out of blossom at the earliest possible time, nor ripens too late; moreover it easily wards off frosts and mists and blight, and the same neither rots with rains nor perishes in droughts.
Such a one is chosen by us, even if only moderately fecund, provided only that there is a place in which a noble and precious savor flows. For if it is sordid or cheap, it is profitable to plant whatever is most fertile, so that by the multiplication of fruits the returns may be augmented. Generally, in almost every condition of sites, the level lands yield wine more lavishly, but the hill-country more pleasant; which nevertheless themselves, in a moderate state of climate, are more exuberant when inclined to the North wind, but are more generous under the South.
Nor is there doubt that it is the nature of some vines that, according to the situation of the localities, in the goodness of the wine they now prevail, now are surpassed. The Amineae alone are reported—except when the state of the climate is too cold—wherever they may be, even if they degenerate, when compared among themselves, to furnish wines of more or less sound taste, and to go before all the others in flavor. Although they are of one name, they do not bear a single species.
We have known two sister varieties, of which the smaller passes out of blossom more swiftly and better, fit for the tree and also for the yoke; there it desires rich soil, here moderate, and it far surpasses the larger, because it endures both rains and winds more stoutly. For the larger is quickly spoiled in the flower, and more on trellises than on trees. And so it is not suitable for vine-rows, scarcely even for a tree-plantation, unless the soil is very rich and moist; for it does not thrive in moderate, and much less in meager.
It is distinguished as belonging to the long-shooting kinds by an abundance of canes and by the size of the leaves, the clusters, and the berries, and it is also more widely spaced in its internodes. In plentiful fruits it is surpassed by the smaller sister; in taste it is not conquered. And indeed both of these are Amineae.
But two other twin varieties also draw their cognomen from the fact that they put forth double clusters of grapes, yielding a more austere wine, yet equally perennial. The lesser of these is most widely known, since it clothes the most celebrated hills of Vesuvius and the Surrentine in Campania; cheerful amid the summer breaths of Favonius, it is afflicted by the Austers. Therefore, in the other parts of Italy it is suited not so much to vine-rows as to tree-trained culture, whereas in the aforesaid regions it most conveniently bears the yoke.
It bears wood and fruit, save that double, not unlike that of its younger sister, just as the greater twin resembles the greater sister; which, however, [minor] is in this respect better, that it is more fecund even in mediocre soil; for that one, unless in very fat soil, does not answer, as has already been said. Some, too, highly approve the Woolly Aminea, which employs this appellation not because it is the only one among all the Amineae, but because it especially grows hoary with down; truly of good wine, but gentler than the foregoing, and it pours forth abundant wood as well; and therefore, on account of the density of the vine-leaf, it often blossoms off somewhat amiss, and likewise, when the fruit is ripe, it quickly putrefies. Beyond this number which we have related, there is held as singular an Aminea not unlike the greater twin at first sight in the leaf and trunk, but in the savor of the wine somewhat inferior, although it is nearest to the most generous, to be preferred also for its own virtues; for it is more fertile and is better cleared of bloom, and it bears thick and whitish clusters and of a more swollen berry, it does not fall away from slender (light) soil, and therefore is numbered among the most abounding vines.
The Nomentanae, in the nobility of their wine, follow after the Amineae, but in fecundity they even outstrip them; indeed, since they often fill themselves and very well maintain what they have put forth. But among them too the smaller is the more fertile, whose leaf is cut more sparingly, and whose wood does not redden so much as that of the larger, from which heat they are named Rubellianae; and the same are Faeciniae, because they bring more lees than the others. Yet they compensate that inconvenience by a multitude of grapes, which they exhibit better both on the yoke and on the tree.
They strongly endure winds and rains, and quickly shed their blossom, and therefore they more swiftly mellow, being patient of every inconvenience except that of heat. For since they have grapes with minute berries and a hard skin, in heats they are contracted. They especially rejoice in fat soil, because nature is able to furnish some fertility to <gracilibus et> meager grapes.
By great endowments too the three Apianae are commended, all fertile and quite suitable for the yoke and for trees; more generous, however, is the one which has naked leaves. For the two woolly ones, although with leaves and shoots of equal appearance, are unlike in the quality of decay, since the one more slowly admits the caries of age. In rich soil they are most fertile, in middling soil too they are fruitful, the fruit precocious; and therefore they are most apt for cold places, yielding sweet wine, but not suited to the head and the nerves [and the veins].
Unless gathered in due season, they bring booty to rains, winds, and bees, from whose name, on account of this depredation, they are surnamed. And these are most celebrated for a precious taste. Yet even vines of second rank can be commended for produce and abundance, such as the Biturica, such as the Basilica, of which the smaller the Spaniards call Cocolubem—both by far nearest to the very first of all.
For their wine too endures age, and comes to a certain goodness over the years. Now indeed they themselves excel all those which I have mentioned before in fecundity, and then also in patience; for they very stoutly withstand whirlwinds and rains, and they drain commodiously, nor do they fail in lean soil. They endure colds better than wetness, wetness more readily than droughts, nor, however, are they disquieted by heats.
The Visula then, and the lesser Argitis, rejoice in a mediocrity of soil. For in rich ground they luxuriate with excessive vigor; in lean they come thin and empty of fruit. They are more amicable to the yoke than to trees; but the Argitis even on the loftier supports is fertile, and abounds in vast wood and in grapes. For the very low trellisings the Visula is more apt: it requires short wood, and a hard and broad leaf, by the amplitude of which it very well protects its fruits against hail; which, however, unless they are gathered ripe at the earliest possible time, fall to the earth; and by moistures they even rot before they drop.
Both of them yield a white must, and in alternate turn of years they bring more or less; they clothe a tree better, yet they also conveniently clothe a yoke; they are fecund even in middling soil, just like the lesser and the greater Pretia. But they are more commended for the generosity (nobility) of the wine, they leaf out with frequent canes, and they ripen quickly. Albuelis is more serviceable, as Celsus says, on a hill than in the plain; on a tree than on a yoke; at the top of the tree than at the bottom; fertile both in abundant wood and in grape.
For the Greekish vines, such as the Mareotic, the Thasian, the psithian, the sophortian, just as they have a plausible taste, so in our regions they yield less, both by the rarity of clusters and the smallness of berries. Yet the little inert black one, which some Greeks call amethyston, can be in the second, as it were, tribe, because it makes good wine and is innocuous—whence also it drew its name, since it is held inert in trying the nerves, though in taste it is not dull. Celsus makes a third grade of those which are commended by fertility alone: such as the three Helvenacians, of which the two larger are by no means held equal to the smaller in goodness and abundance of must; of these, one, which the inhabitants of Gaul call emarcum, makes middling wine; and another, which they call long, and the same “avaricious,” of sordid wine, nor so bountiful as at first sight the number of its clusters promises.
The smallest and best of the three is most easily distinguished by its leaf; for it bears the most rotund of all, and it is laudable, because it endures droughts most, because it withstands colds, provided, however, that it be without rains, because in some places even its wine is prolonged into old age, because especially by itself it commends even the most meager soil by its fertility. As the spionia, lavish in must and fertile more by the amplitude of its grapes than by number; as the oleaginia; as the Murgentina, the same also called Pompeiana; as the Numisiana; as the venucula, the same also scirpula and likewise sticula; as the black Fregellana; as the merica; as the Rhaetica; as, of all that we have known, the most copious arcelaca maior, by many falsely estimated to be argitis. For as to these recently known to me—I mean the pergulana and the irtiola and the fereola—I would not easily assert in what grade they are to be held; because although I know them sufficiently fruitful, yet I have not been able to judge about the goodness of the wine which they produce.
We have also discovered that a single early-ripening vine, previously unknown to us before this time, is called by Greek custom dracontion, which can be compared, in fecundity and in pleasantness, to the arcelaca, the basilica, and the Biturica, and, in the generosity (nobility) of its wine, to the Aminea. Moreover, there are many kinds of vines besides, whose number nor their appellations we are able to relate with sure confidence.
Quippe universae regiones regionumque paene singulae partes habent propria vitium genera, quae consuetudine sua nominant; quaedam etiam stirpes cum locis vocabula mutaverunt; quaedam propter mutationem locorum, sicut supra diximus, etiam qualitate sua decesserunt, ita ut dignosci non possint. Ideoque in hac ipsa Italia, ne dicam in tam diffuso terrarum orbe, vicinae etiam nationes nominibus earum discrepant, variantque vocabula. Quare prudentis magistri est eiusmodi nomenclationis aucupio, quo potiri nequeant, studiosos non demorari; sed illud in potum praecipere, quod et Celsus ait et ante eum M. Cato, nullum genus vitium conserendum esse nisi fama, nullum diutius conservandum nisi experimento probatum; atque ubi multa invitabunt regionis commoda, ut nobilem vitem conseremus, generosam requiremus, inquit Iulius Graecinus; ubi nihil erit aut non multum, quod proritet, feracitatem potius sequemur, quae non eadem portione vincitur pretio, qua vincit abundantia.
Indeed the whole regions, and almost the individual parts of regions, have their own proper kinds of vines, which they name according to their custom; certain stocks even have changed their names with the places; certain ones, on account of the change of places, just as we said above, have even departed from their own quality, so that they cannot be recognized. And therefore in this very Italy, not to say in so vast a globe of lands, even neighboring nations disagree in the names of them, and vary the vocabularies. Wherefore it is the part of a prudent master not to detain students with the bird‑snaring of such nomenclature, which they cannot master; but to prescribe this as a drinkable precept, which both Celsus says and before him Marcus Cato: that no kind of vines is to be planted except on reputation, and none to be kept longer unless proved by experiment; and where many conveniences of the region invite, as Julius Graecinus says, we shall plant a noble vine, we shall seek one of good breed; where there will be nothing, or not much, to prompt, we shall rather follow fecundity, which is not beaten by price in the same proportion as abundance beats it.
III. Nunc prius quam se satione vitium disseram, non alienum puto, velut quoddam fundamentum iacere disputationi futurae, ut ante perpensum et exploratum habeamus, an locupletet patrem familias vinearum cultus. Est enim paene adhuc supervacuum de his conserendis praecipere, dum quod prius est, nondum concedatur, an omnino sint habendae; idque adeo plurimi dubitent, ut multi refugiant et reformident talem positionem ruris, atque optabiliorem pratorum possessionem pascuorumque vel silvae caeduae iudicent. Nam de arbusto etiam inter auctores non exigua pugna fuit, abnuente Saserna genus id ruris, Tremellio maxime probante.
3. Now, before I discuss the planting of vines, I do not think it out of place to lay, as it were, a certain foundation for the discussion to come, so that we may first have it weighed and explored whether the cultivation of vineyards enriches the paterfamilias. For it is still almost superfluous to give precepts about planting these, while what is prior has not yet been conceded—whether they are to be had at all; and so many doubt this to such a degree that many shun and dread such a position of farmland, and judge the possession of meadows and pastures, or of coppice-wood, to be more desirable. For even about the arbustum (a vineyard trained on trees) there was no small contention among the authorities, Saserna refusing that kind of land, Tremellius most highly approving it.
Sed we will also estimate this opinion in its own place. Meanwhile, devotees of agriculture must first be taught this: that the most uber-abundant return is that of vineyards. And, to pass over that ancient felicity of the arable lands, about which both earlier M. Cato and soon after Terentius Varro have transmitted that single iugera of vineyards furnished 600 urns of wine; for Varro very emphatically asserts this in the first book of Rustic Affairs; and that it was wont to come forth not in one region only, but both in the Faventine territory and in the Gallic, which now is assigned to Picenum; in these times certainly the Nomentan region is illustrious with most celebrated fame, and especially that estate which Seneca possesses, a man of excellent genius and doctrine, on whose estates single iugera of vineyards have for the most part been found to have yielded 8 cullei.
For those things seem to have happened prodigiously on our Ceretan estates, that some vine at your place surpassed the number of two thousand clusters of grapes, and that at mine eighty grafted stocks within a biennium amounted to seven cullei, that prime vineyards supplied by the iugerum a hundred amphoras, whereas meadows and pastures and woods, if they yield one hundred sesterces on each iugerum, seem to look out best for the master. For as to grains, we can scarcely remember when in the greater part of Italy they have answered fourfold. Why, then, is the matter in ill repute?
“Not indeed by its own but by men’s fault,” says Graecinus. First, because in exploring the seeds no one applies diligence, and therefore the majority plant vineyards of the worst kind; then they do not nourish the plantings in such a way that they convalesce and spring forth before they grow parched; and even if by chance they have grown up, they cultivate them negligently. Now from the beginning they judge it to make no difference what place they plant; nay rather, they even select the worst part of their fields, as though the only earth most suitable to this stock were that which can bear nothing else.
But not even do they perceive the method of planting, or, having perceived it, do they carry it out; then too they rarely prepare a dowry, that is, the instrument, for the vines; whereas that matter, if it be omitted, continually drains both very many labors and no less the coffer of the paterfamilias. In truth most people pursue as most abundant a present fruit as possible, and do not provide for future time, but as if they plainly lived for the day, so they command the vines, and load them with so many shoots that they do not look out for posterity. All these things, or at least very many of them, when they have committed, they prefer anything rather than to confess their own fault; and they complain that the vineyards do not respond to them, which they have ruined either through avarice or through ignorance or through negligence.
But if any should have yoked diligence with knowledge, they will receive not, as I think, 40—or at least 30—but, as Graecinus says, though computing the minimum, 20 amphoras from each iugerum: they will easily surpass all those who embrace their hay and vegetables in increase of patrimony. Nor does he err in this; for, as a diligent calculator, with the reckoning set, sees, this genus of agriculture conduces most to the household estate. For although vineyards demand the most ample expenditures, nevertheless 7 iugera do not exceed the labor of one vinedresser, whom the common sort suppose can be procured for a small coin, or even as a convict from the stone-quarry; but I, dissenting from the opinion of most, judge the vinedresser to be in the first rank precious; and even if he be bought for <six, or rather> 8,000 sesterces, whereas the very soil for 7 iugera is acquired for as many thousands of coin (7,000), and the vineyards with their dowry, that is, with props and withes, I reckon at 2,000 set upon each iugerum; then the price comes out, to the as, a consummated total of 29,000 sesterces.
To this there are added the half-as usuries: three thousand sesterces, and four hundred eighty coins, for a period of two years, during which, as it were, the infancy of the vineyards ceases from yielding fruit. The total of principal and usuries amounts in the whole to 32 thousand four hundred eighty coins. Which so‑called “account,” if, as a moneylender with a debtor, so the countryman should make with his vines, let the owner establish, for that sum, in perpetuity, the aforesaid half-as usury: he ought to take each year 1,950 sesterce coins; by which computation the revenue of 7 iugera, according to the opinion of Graecinus, nevertheless surpasses the interest on 32,480 coins.
For although the vineyards be of the worst kind, nevertheless, if cultivated, each of their iugera will certainly match a single culleus of wine; and let 40 urns sell for 300 coins, which is the minimum price of the provisions-market; yet 7 cullei make up 2,000 sestertia and 100 coins: and that sum exceeds the interest of the semisses. And this calculation which we have set down contains Graecinus’s reckoning. But we judge that vineyards whose individual iugera yield less than 3 cullei ought to be extirpated.
But yet up to now we have computed thus, as if there were no viviradices, which are taken out from the pastinated plot; since that one thing alone would free all the expense of the ground-work by its own price, if only the field be not provincial but Italian. Nor ought this to be doubtful to anyone, since it has balanced both our account and that of Julius Atticus. For we [now] plant twenty thousand malleoli per iugerum of vineyard between the rows.
He lays down less than 4,000; and though someone’s calculation should surpass this, nevertheless no site, even the most iniquitous, will fail to render a greater profit than the expense it has received; since, granted that by the cultivator’s negligence even 6,000 of the seedlings perish, yet the remaining 10,000 will be gladly, and with profit, bought back for 3,000 coins. Which sum surpasses by a third 2,000 sesterces, the price at which we said a iugerum of vineyards stands. Although our care has now advanced to such a point that rustics not unwillingly buy from me each thousand of rooted-vines for 600 sesterces.
But scarcely would anyone else have accomplished that. For no one would readily have believed us that there is such an abundance of wine in our little fields as you, Silvinus, know. Therefore I have set a moderate and common price for the live-root, in order that more quickly, with no one dissenting, those who, on account of ignorance, shrink from this kind of agriculture might be brought over to our view.
IV. Cui vineta facere cordi est, praecipue caveat, ne alienae potius curae quam suae credere velit, neve mercetur viviradicem. Sed genus surculi probatissimum domi conserat, faciatque vitiarium, ex quo possit agrum vineis vestire. Nam quae peregrina ex diversa regione semina transferuntur, minus sunt familiaria nostro solo, quam vernacula; eoque velut alienigena reformidant mutatam caeli locique positionem.
4. Whoever has it at heart to make vineyards should especially beware, lest he wish to entrust them to another’s care rather than his own, and let him not purchase a living root. But let him plant at home the most approved kind of scion, and make a vine-nursery, from which he can clothe his field with vines. For seeds transplanted as peregrine from a different region are less familiar to our soil than the vernacular ones; and for that reason, like aliens, they shrink from the changed position of climate and place.
But neither do they promise a sure pledge of nobility, since it is uncertain whether he who has planted them has set a kind of shoot diligently explored and approved. Wherefore the span of two years is by no means to be thought long, within which, in any case, the seasonableness of the plantings answers; since always, as I said, it has mattered very much to have laid down a stock of an exquisite kind. After these things then, let him remember to choose the place for the vineyards accurately; and when he has judged about it, let him know that the greatest diligence must be applied to pastination; which when he has completed, let him plant the vine with no less care; and when he has set it, let him attend the cultivation with the highest sedulity; for that is, as it were, the head and pillar of the expenditures; since on this depends whether the paterfamilias has consigned money to the earth for better or for worse, rather than to handle it in idleness.
V. Vitiarium neque ieiuna terra, neque uliginosa faciendum est; succosa tamen ac mediocri potius quam pingui. Tametsi fere omnes auctores huic rei laetissimum locum destinaverunt. Quod ego minime reor esse pro agricola.
V. The vitiary is to be made neither in lean soil nor in uliginous (marshy) ground; yet in sappy and moderate soil rather than in fat (rich). Although almost all the authorities have assigned the most luxuriant place for this matter, I by no means think that to be for the farmer.
For cuttings set down in a strong soil, although they quickly take hold and leap forth, yet when they have become live-roots, if they are transferred into a worse one, they shrivel back and are not able to grow up. It is the part of a prudent colonus to transfer from a worse land rather into a better, than from a better into a worse. On account of which mediocrity (the middle condition) in the choosing of a place is most approved, since it is set on the border of the good and the bad.
For whether later necessity should demand that seasonable seedlings be committed to a barren soil, they will feel no great difference, since they have been transferred from a mediocre land into a meager one; or if a more luxuriant field is to be planted, they coalesce into fertility far more swiftly. Again, to make a vine-nursery in the very thinnest soil is by no means reasonable, since the better part of the malleoli perishes, and what remains becomes fit for transplantation slowly. Therefore a mediocre and moderately dry field is most apt for a vine-nursery, and it ought first to be worked to a two-spade depth, which is the depth of pastination, when the soil is turned to two feet and a half; and then, with three-foot spaces left, which are to be cultivated along for the plantings, in each row, which comprises 240 feet, eighty malleoli are to be planted.
VI. Sed electio dupliciter facienda est: non enim solum fecundam esse matrem satis est, ex qua semina petuntur, sed adhibenda ratio est subtilior, ut ex his partibus trunci sumantur, quae et genitales sunt et maxime fertiles. Vitis autem fecunda, cuius progeniem studemus submittere, non tantum debet eo aestimari, quod uvas complures exigit. Potest enim trunci vastitate id accidere et frequentia palmitum; nec tamen eam feracem dixerim, cuius singulae uvae in singulis sarmentis conspiciuntur, sed si per unumquemque pampinum maior numerus uvarum dependet; si ex singulis gemmis compluribus materiis cum fructu germinat; si denique etiam e duro virgam cum aliquibus racemis citat; si etiam nepotum fructu gravida est: ea sine dubitatione ferax destinari debet legendo malleolo.
6. But the selection must be made in a twofold way: for it is not enough that the mother, from whom the seeds/scions are sought, be fecund; a subtler reckoning must be applied, that from those parts of the trunk scions be taken which are both generative and most fertile. Moreover, a fecund vine, whose progeny we are eager to propagate, ought not to be assessed only by this, that it brings forth many clusters. For that can happen through the vastness of the trunk and the frequency of the shoots; nor, however, would I call that one fruitful in which single clusters are seen on single canes, but rather if through each shoot (pampin) a greater number of clusters hangs; if from single buds several pieces of wood (canes) bud forth with fruit; if, finally, even from hard wood it puts forth a rod with some racemes; if it is also pregnant with the fruit of the “nephew” shoots (laterals): such a vine without doubt ought to be designated as fertile by choosing a scion from it.
The malleolus, moreover, is a young shoot, born on the previous year’s flagellum (whip‑cane), and so surnamed by similarity, because at the part where it is cut from the old shoot, projecting on both sides it offers the appearance of a little hammer. This, from the most fecund stock, we judge should be selected at any time when the vines are pruned. And it should be carefully buried in a place moderately moist, not boggy, with three or four buds standing out above the ground; provided, however, that it is held most important to consider that the vine from which it is taken not have an uncertain outcome of blossom, lest the berry enlarge with difficulty, and lest it bear fruit either precocious or of late maturity.
But when, after the as‑it‑were honorably discharged stipends of several years, trust rests in the slip, there is no need to doubt its fecundity. Yet such inquiry is not extended beyond 4 years; for that span for the most part declares the generosity of things in verdure, when the sun returns to the same part of the zodiac through the same numbers by which it took the beginning of its course. This circuit, a course of 1,461 whole days, the devotees of celestial matters call the apokatastasis.
VII. Sed certum habeo, P. Silvine, iamdudum te tacitum requirere, cuius generis sit ista fecunda vitis, quam nos tam acurate describimus, anne de iis aliqua significetur, quae vulgo nunc habentur feracissimae. Plurimi namque Bituricam, multi spioniam, quidam basilicam, nonnulli arcelacam laudibus efferunt. Nos quoque haec genera non fraudamus testimonio nostro: sunt etiam largissimi vini; sed proposuimus docere vineas eiusmodi conserere, quae nec minus uberes fructus praedictis generibus afferant, et sint pretiosi saporis, velut Aminei, vel certe non procul ab eo gustu.
7. But I am certain, P. Silvine, that for some time now you have been silently asking of what kind that fruitful vine is which we are describing so accurately, or whether any mention is made of those which are now commonly held the most fertile. For very many extol the Biturican, many the Spionian, some the Basilican, some the Arcelacan, with praises. We too do not defraud these varieties of our testimony: they are also most bountiful in wine; but we have proposed to teach how to plant vineyards of such a sort as both to bring forth harvests no less abundant than the aforesaid kinds, and to be of precious savor, like the Aminean, or at least not far from that taste.
On which point I know that the opinion of almost all farmers is diverse from our judgment, which concerning the Aminei has, inveterate by now, grown strong through a long time, as though they labored under a natal and ingenerate sterility: wherefore all the more our reasoning, drawn from afar and to be made firm by several examples, must be established, which, condemned by the sloth and no less by the imprudence of the cultivators, and, as if blinded by the shadows of ignorance, has lacked the light of truth. Wherefore it is not untimely for us to anticipate those matters which seem able to correct this public error.
VIII. Igitur si rerum naturam, P. Silvine, velut acrioribus mentis oculis intueri velimus, reperiemus parem legem fecunditatis eam dixisse virentibus atque hominibus ceterisque animalibus: nec sic aliis nationibus regionibusve proprias tribuisse dotes, ut aliis in totum similia munera denegaret. Quibusdam gentibus numerosam progenerandi sobolem dedit, ut Aegyptiis et Afris, quibus gemini partus familiares ac paene solemnes sunt; sed et Italici generis esse voluit eximiae fecunditatis Albanas Curiatiae familiae trigeminorum matres. Germaniam decoravit altissimorum hominum exercitibus; sed et alias gentes non in totum fraudavit praecipuae staturae viris.
8. Therefore, if we should wish, P. Silvine, to contemplate the nature of things as it were with the keener eyes of the mind, we shall find that it has pronounced an equal law of fecundity for the green things and for human beings and the other animals; nor has it so assigned proper endowments to certain nations or regions as to deny entirely similar gifts to others. To some peoples it gave a numerous progeny in procreation, as to the Egyptians and the Africans, for whom twin births are familiar and well-nigh customary; but it also willed that there should be, of the Italian race, mothers of triplets of exceptional fecundity—the Alban mothers of the Curiatian triplets. It adorned Germany with armies of very tall men; yet it did not in all respects defraud other nations of men of outstanding stature.
For M. Tullius Cicero is witness that the Roman citizen Naevius Pollio was a foot taller than anyone, even the very tallest; and lately we ourselves were able to see, in the apparatus of the pomp of the Circensian games, a man of the Judaean nation taller than the most lofty German. I pass over to livestock. Mevania is distinguished for lofty herds, Liguria for small; yet both at Mevania a low ox, and in Liguria sometimes a bull of eminent stature, is seen.
India is reported wondrous for the masses of wild beasts: yet who would deny that in this land beasts equal in bulk are begotten, since we notice elephants born within our own walls? But I return to the kinds of crops. They say that Mysia and Libya abound in lavish grains; nor, however, do the Apulian and Campanian fields fail in rich harvests.
Tmolus and Corycus flourish with saffron; Judaea and Arabia are held illustrious for precious odors: yet our city too is not in want of the aforesaid plants, since in several places of the city we already behold cassia leafing, already the frankincense-plant,, and gardens flowering with myrrh and saffron. By these examples, however, we are of course admonished that Italy is most obsequious to the care of mortals, which, by the applied diligence of the farmers, has learned to bear the crops of almost the whole world. Wherefore we should the less doubt concerning that produce which is, as it were, indigenous, peculiar, and home-born to this soil.
IX. Fecunditas ab his forsitan desideretur; sed et haec adiuvari potest cultoris industria. Nam si, ut paulo ante rettuli, benignissima rerum omnium parens natura quasque gentis atque terras ita muneribus propriis ditavit, ut tamen ceteras non in universum similibus dotibus fraudaret, cur eam dubitemus etiam in vitibus praedictam legem servasse? Ut quamvis earum genus aliquod praecipue fecundum esse voluerit, tamquam Bituricum aut basilicum, non tamen sic Amineum sterile reddiderit, ut ex multis milibus eius ne paucissimae quidem vites fecundae, tamquam in Italicis hominibus Albanae illae sorores, reperiri possint.
9. Fecundity may perhaps be desired from these; but even this can be aided by the cultivator’s industry. For if, as I a little before related, Nature, the most benign parent of all things, has so enriched each nation and land with its own proper gifts, yet so as not to defraud the others altogether of similar dowries, why should we doubt that she has kept the aforesaid law even in vines? So that, although she willed some kind of them to be especially fecund, such as the Bituric or the basilic, yet she has not rendered the Aminean so sterile that, out of many thousands of it, not even the very few vines that are fecund could be found, as those Alban sisters among Italian men.
But while this is plausible, experience has also taught us that it is true, since both in the Ardeatine district, which we ourselves formerly possessed for many years, and in the Carseolan, and likewise in the Alban, we have had vines of the Aminean stock of this description—indeed very few in number, but so fertile that, on the yoke-trellis, each single vine would provide three urns, whereas on pergolas each single vine would equal ten amphoras. Nor should this fecundity seem unbelievable in the Amineans. For how could Terentius Varro, and before him M. Cato, have been able to affirm that in ancient times a single iugerum of vineyards poured out six hundred urns for the cultivators, if fecundity had been lacking to the Amineans, which for the most part alone the ancients knew?
Unless, perhaps, we suppose that those vines which have recently, and only now, fetched from plainly far‑distant regions, have been handed over to our knowledge—that they cultivated vineyards of the Bituric stock or the basilic—whereas we still reckon the most ancient vines to be Aminean. If anyone, therefore, should mark Amineans such as I a little before reported myself to have possessed, tested by several vintages, so that from these he may choose the most fecund malleoli (cuttings), he can likewise make vineyards both generous and abundant. For there is no doubt that Nature herself has willed the offspring to be like the mother.
Unde sacrorum certaminum studiosi pernicissimarum quadrigarum semina diligenti observatione custodiunt, et spem futurarum victoriarum concipiunt propagata sobole generosi armenti. Nos quoque pari ratione velut olympionicarum equarum, ita feracissimarum Aminearum seminibus electis largae vindemiae spem capiamus. Neque est quod temporis tarditas quemquam deterreat: nam quicquid morae est, in exploratione surculi absumitur.
Whence the devotees of the sacred contests guard, with diligent observation, the breeding-stock of the swiftest four-horse teams, and conceive the hope of future victories from the propagated offspring of a well-bred herd. We too, by a like rationale, just as from the mares of Olympionic victors, so, with the selected cuttings of the most fertile Amineae, let us take up the hope of a lavish vintage. Nor is there any reason for the slowness of time to deter anyone: for whatever delay there is is spent in the testing of the cutting.
Moreover, when the fecundity of a vine has been proven, it is most swiftly brought by graftings to the greatest number. Of this matter you in particular, Publius Silvinus, can bear testimony for us, since you remember well that by me two iugera of vineyards, within the space of a biennium, from a single early-ripening vine—which you possess on your Ceretan estate—were brought to completion with the grafting performed. What number of vines, then, do you think can be planted within just as much time by cuttings (malleoli) for two iugera, since the two iugera themselves are the progeny of a single vine?
Wherefore, if, as I said, we are willing to apply labor and care, we shall easily by the aforesaid method establish vineyards of the Aminean stock as fertile as the Biturican or the Basilic; only this will have made the difference, that in transferring the semina we observe a like state of the sky (climate) and of the place, and the habit of the vine itself; since a shoot (surculus) for the most part degenerates if either the site of the field or the quality of the air is contrary, or even if it is carried from a tree onto a yoke (trellis). And so we shall transfer from cold places into cold, from warm into similar, from vineyards into vineyards. Yet the Aminean stock from a cold condition can more readily endure heat than from a hot [one] cold.
Since, while every kind of vine, yet most especially the aforesaid one, naturally rejoices in warmth rather than in cold. But the quality of the soil too helps very much, so that it may be transferred from lean or mediocre into something better. For that which is accustomed to rich (fat) soil by no means endures the meagerness of the earth, unless you manure it more frequently.
X. Feracissima autem semina sunt, non ut veteres auctores tradiderunt, extrema pars eius, quod caput vitis appellant, id est productissimum flagellum: nam in eo quoque falluntur agricolae. Sed erroris est causa prima species, et numerus uvarum, qui plerumque conspicitur in productissimo sarmento. Quae res nos decipere non debet.
10. But the most fruitful cuttings are not, as the ancient authors have handed down, the extreme part of it, which they call the head of the vine, that is, the most extended whip: for in this too the farmers are mistaken. But the first cause of the error is the appearance, and the number of grape-clusters, which very often is seen on the most extended shoot. This ought not to deceive us.
For that happens not by the inborn fertility of the shoot, but by the advantage of the location, because all the moisture and nourishment, which is supplied by the soil, runs past the remaining parts of the trunk until it reaches the ultimate point. For by a natural spirit, all the nourishment of the green thing, as if a certain soul, through the pith of the trunk, as though through a siphon which the mechanics call a "diabetes," is drawn up to the top; where, when it has arrived, there it halts and is consumed. Whence also the most potent substances are found either in the head of the vine or in the leg near the roots.
But also those sterile ones which are taken from hard wood are robust for a double reason: because they are void of bearing, and because they are nourished from the nearest earth by an entire and untainted juice; and those are fertile and firm because they creep forth from tender wood, and whatever nourishment, as I said above, comes to them is undivided. The Meidae are very meager, because the moisture runs past—on this side intercepted in some part, on that side drawn off to itself. Therefore the last whip should not be regarded as fecund, even if it brings very much, since by the richness of the place it is driven into fruit; but rather that shoot which is situated in the middle of the vine, which indeed does not fail in any inopportune part, and by a numerous offspring displays its benignity.
This little shoot, when transplanted, more rarely degenerates, since from a worse status it obtains a better. For whether it is set down in a pastinated (trenched) plot, or inserted (grafted) into the trunk, it is satisfied with more ample aliments than before, when it was in want. Accordingly, we shall keep to this: that from the aforesaid places, which the rustics call “shoulders,” we gather the seed-stocks, yet those which we have observed to have borne fruit previously.
For if it be void of offspring, then, however praiseworthy a part of the vine it may be, we judge that it contributes nothing to the fertility of the malleolus (cutting). Wherefore most vicious is the opinion of those agriculturists who believe it matters very little how many grapes the shoot (sarment) has borne, provided it be taken from a fertile vine and not sprung from the hard trunk, which they call a pampinarium. But this opinion, which has arisen from ignorance in choosing the seed-cuttings, first makes vineyards but little fecund, and then even too sterile.
For who indeed at all, now through so long a series of years, has any farmer instructed those picking out the cuttings in the matters which we reported a little before? Nay rather, who does not delegate to this business every most imprudent person, and the one who is able to do no other work? And so, from this custom, the most imprudent come to a matter most necessary; then also, as I said, every most infirm and most useless person, who can bear no other labor, is applied to this office.
Moreover, even if he has any knowledge of selecting the malleolus (vine-slip), he conceals it on account of weakness and sets it aside, and, so that he may be able to make up the number which the villicus has ordered, he manages nothing carefully, nothing religiously: he has one aim, to finish the quota of his labor; although, both that he may know and may carry out what he knows, he has received this sole precept from his masters—to not plant down a pampinarium rod, and to consign all the rest to the propagating stocks. We, however, first following reason, and now also the experiment of a long time, choose no other “seed,” nor do we deem anything frugiferous, unless it has borne fruit in the genital part. For that which, in a sterile place, has grown luxuriant and robust without offspring, presents a deceptive image of fecundity and possesses no power of generating.
Reason reminds us that this is without doubt true, if only, as in our bodies the proper offices of each member exist, so too in the parts of fruit-bearing stocks there are proper duties. We see in human beings the soul breathed in, as a kind of charioteer and directress of the members, and senses implanted for discerning those things which are tracked down by touch and those by the nostrils, ears, and eyes; feet composed for going, arms for embrace; and, lest my discourse wander insolently through all the turns of ministries, the ears can do nothing that belongs to the eyes, nor the eyes what belongs to the ears; nor indeed has the faculty of begetting been given to the hands or the soles; but what the begetter of the universe willed to be unknown to humans, he sheltered in the womb, so that the eternal artificer, endowed with the divine reason of things, as it were in certain secret places of the body, in the hidden and covered chamber, might mingle those sacred elements of spirit with earthly primordia, and fashion this form of the machine of a living creature. By this law he begot cattle and little shoots, by this he shaped the kinds of vines, for which the same very mother and parent first cast down roots as certain foundations, that they might stand upon them as upon feet: then he set the trunk above as a kind of stature and habitus of a body; soon he spread it out with branches as with arms; then he drew forth stalks and tendrils as if palms.
And of these he gifted some with fruit, he clothed others with leafage alone for protecting and safeguarding the offspring. From these, therefore, as we said above, if we should choose not the genital members themselves, gravid with conception and fetus, but as it were the coverings and shade-canopies of those which are widowed of fruits, we shall have labored for shade, to wit, not for the vintage. What then?
Why, although the vine-leaf is not from the hard but is born from the tender, yet if it is bereft, is it by us condemned as though sterile even for the future? For just now our disputation was concluding that to each part of the body its proper, attributed office is assigned, which, to be sure, befits it; so that to the grafting-shoot (malleolus), too, which has arisen in a suitable place, there is present a power of fecundity, even if in the meantime it ceases from bearing. Nor would I deny that I set myself to argue this.
But I also most expressly profess that a vine-shoot, although sprung from a fruit-bearing part, if it does not bring forth fruit, does not have even the force of fecundity. Nor is this repugnant to that opinion. For it is manifest that certain men cannot beget, although the number of all their members is constant; let it not, then, be unbelievable that, if a rod born in the genital place lacks fruit, it will also be lacking in offspring.
Accordingly, to return to the custom of agriculturists, they call such little shoots as have brought forth nothing “eunuchs”; which they would not do, unless they suspected them to be unfit for fruits. And this very appellation suggested to me the reason for not choosing malleoli—though born from a commendable part of the vine—if they had not borne fruit. Although I also know that these very ones are not wholly affected by sterility.
For I confess that leaf-shoots as well, when they have crept out from the hard wood, acquire fecundity in the season of the following year, and for that reason are submitted to pruning, so that they may be able to progenerate. But we have found that an offspring of this sort is a function not so much of the pruning itself as of the mother. For because it clings to its own stock, which is by nature fertile, still mingled with the parent’s nourishment, and brought up by the seeds of a fecund birth and, as it were, at a nurse’s udders, it gradually learns to bear fruit.
But a plant which, before a certain puberty of nature, is torn from the trunk and inserted either into the earth, or even grafted into a cut stock, either wholly loses, or at least diminishes, the power of generating, as a boyish age is not even fit for coition, much less for conception. Wherefore I strongly advise that great care be applied in choosing seeds, that from the fruitful part of the vine we pick out those shoots which, by having already borne fruit, promise future fecundity. Nor yet let us be content with the grapes, but let us especially approve those which are observed with the most numerous offspring.
But shall we not praise the shepherd propagating progeny from that mother who has borne twins; and the goatherd putting up for breeding the offspring of those flocks which are commended by a threefold birth? Clearly, because he hopes the progeny will correspond to the fecundity of the parents. And we shall follow this very rationale in vines, so much the more indeed because we have ascertained that by a certain natural malignity even seeds, however carefully approved, sometimes defect; and the poet inculcates this truth upon us as if we were deaf, by saying:
Quod non tantum de seminibus leguminum, sed <in> tota agricolationis ratione dictum esse intelligendum est; si modo longi temporis observatione comperimus, quod certe comperimus, eum malleolum, qui quattuor uvas tulerit, deputatum et in terram depositum, a fecunditate materna sic degenerare, ut interdum singulis, nonnumquam etiam binis uvis minus minus afferat. In quantum autem censemus defecturos eos, qui binos aut fere singulos fetus in matre tulerint, cum etiam feracissimi translationem saepe reformident? Itaque huius rationis demonstratorem magis esse me quam inventorem, libenter profiteor; ne quis existimet fraudari maiores nostros laude merita.
Which is to be understood as said not only of the seeds of legumes, but <in> the whole rationale of agriculture; provided only that by observation over a long time we have discovered—what surely we have discovered—that that malleolus (vine-shoot) which has borne four bunches of grapes, when pruned and laid in the ground, so degenerates from maternal fecundity that sometimes it brings in less—by a single bunch, sometimes even by two bunches of grapes. By how much, moreover, do we reckon those will fall short, who on the mother vine have borne two, or almost single, offspring, since even the most fertile often shrink from transplantation? And so I gladly profess myself to be more the demonstrator of this rationale than its inventor, lest anyone suppose that our ancestors are being defrauded of their merited praise.
For that they themselves felt this is not doubtful, although it has been transmitted in no other writing except the lines of Vergil which we have cited—yet in such a way that the precept is given about the seeds of legumes. For why would they repudiate either a rod born from hard wood, or even an arrow-shoot cut from a fecund malleolus (vine-slip) which they themselves had approved, if they judged it made no difference from what place the seeds were gathered? Was it not because they did not doubt that the force of fecundity inhered, as it were, in certain definite members, that therefore they most tellingly condemned the pampinarium and the “arrow” as useless for planting?
But if this is so, there is no doubt that, much more, even that tendril would have been disapproved by them, which, though born in a fruit-bearing place, had not brought forth fruit. For if they judged the “arrow,” that is, the upper part of the malleolus (cutting), to be blameworthy, since it was the selfsame part of a fruit-bearing shoot, how much more does reason itself declare that even a whip-like shoot born from the best part of the vine, if it is sterile, was disapproved by them? Unless, however—which is absurd—they believed that that which, transplanted and cut off from its own stock and bereft of maternal aliment, would be fruit-bearing, which on the mother itself had been worthless.
XI. Nunc ad reliquum ordinem propositae disputationis redeo. Sequitur hanc eligendi malleoli curam pastinationis officium: si tamen ante de qualitate soli constiterit. Nam eam quoque plurimum et bonitati et largitati frugum conferre nihil dubium est.
11. Now I return to the remaining order of the proposed disputation. Next after this care of selecting the cutting (malleolus) comes the duty of pastination—provided, however, that there has first been a determination about the quality of the soil. For that too contributes very greatly both to the goodness and to the abundance of crops, there is no doubt.
And before we scrutinize the soil itself, we deem this most ancient principle: that, if there is the means, a rough, uncultivated field is rather to be chosen than one where there has been a grain-crop or a tree-plantation. For concerning vineyards that have grown out of use through long neglect, it is established among all authors that they are the worst, if we wish to replant, because the lower soil is impeded and, as it were, entangled with many roots, and has not yet lost the virulence and that caries—the rot—of age, by which the humus, dulled as if by certain poisons, becomes torpid. For which cause a sylvan field is especially to be chosen, which, even if it is beset by thickets or trees, is easily extricated, because the things that grow there by their own nature do not drive roots wholly nor deep, but spread and draw them along the surface of the earth; and when these have been cut back with iron and extirpated, the clean remainder of the lower soil one may dig with rakes, and heap up and compose into ferment; if, however, raw land is not available, the next best thing is an arable field void of trees.
For if necessity compels us to do it, first whatever there is of the residual vine must be extirpated; then the whole soil should be manured with dry dung, or, if that is not available, with a fertilizer of some other kind rather than the most recent, and thus be turned, and all the roots, re-dug with the greatest diligence, should be brought up to the surface and burned; then again let the trenched ground be covered liberally either with old manure, because it does not beget herbs, or with earth taken out from brambles.. But where the fallows are clean and free from trees, it must be considered before we trench whether the land is surcular (shoot-producing) or not; and this is most easily explored by the stocks which spring up of their own accord. For there is no soil so widowed of brushwood as not to beget some shoots, such as wild pears and plums, or at least brambles. For these, although they are kinds of thorns, are nevertheless wont to rise strong and flourishing and pregnant with fruit.
Therefore, if we see that it is not shriveled nor scabrous, but smooth and shining, and luxuriant and fruitful, we shall understand that to be shoot-bearing soil. But this in general; for that which is especially suitable for vineyards must be considered more precisely, as I said before: whether the humus is easy and moderately loosened, which we said is called “pulla” (dark); and not because that alone (is fit), but because it is most handy for vineyards. For what farmer, even of middling skill, does not know that even the hardest tufa or carbuncle, as soon as they are broken up and heaped on the surface, by storms and frost and no less by the heats of summer rot and are resolved; and that the roots of the vines are thereby most excellently cooled through the summer, and retain their sap?
Moreover, as my own opinion also holds, flint too is friendly to vineyards, when a modest earthy covering is laid over it, because, being cool and tenacious of moisture, at the rising of the Dog-star it does not allow the roots to thirst. Hyginus indeed, following Tremellius, asserts that especially the bottoms of mountains, which have received the soil flowing down from the summits, or even valleys which have grown by the alluvion and inundation of rivers, are apt for vineyards, I not dissenting. A chalky soil is held useful for the vine: for the creta itself, which potters use, and which some call clay, is most inimical; and no less barren is sand, and whatever, as Julius Atticus says, makes the shoot parched; now such ground is either uliginous or saline; bitter also, or thirsty, and very arid.
XII. Sed ne nunc per infinitas terreni species evagemur, non intempestive commemorabimus Iulii Graecini conscriptam velut formulam, ad quam posita est limitatio terrae vinealis. Idem enim Graecinus sic ait: esse aliquam terram calidam vel frigidam, humidam vel siccam, raram vel densam, levem aut gravem, pinguem aut macram; sed neque nimium calidum solum posse tolerare vitem, quia inurat; neque praegelidum, quoniam velut stupentes et congelatas radices nimio frigore moveri non sinat; quae tum demum se promunt, cum modico tepore evocantur. Humorem terrae iusto maiorem putrefacere deposita semina; rursus nimiam siccitatem destituere plantas naturali alimento, aut in totum necare, aut scabras et retorridas facere; perdensam humum caelestis aquas non sorbere, nec facile perflari, facillime perrumpi, et praebere rimas, quibus sol ad radices stirpium penetret; eandemque velut conclausa et coarctata semina comprimere atque strangulare; raram supra modum velut per infundibulum transmittere imbres, et sole ac vento penitus siccari atque exolescere; gravem terram vix ulla cultura vinci; levem vix ulla sustineri; pinguissimam et laetissimam luxuria, macram et tenuem ieiunio laborare.
12. But lest we now wander through infinite species of the terrestrial, we shall not untimely call to mind the, as it were, written formula of Julius Graecinus, according to which the delimitation of vine-bearing soil is set. For the same Graecinus thus says: that there is some soil hot or cold, humid or dry, rare or dense, light or heavy, fat or lean; but that neither can a too hot soil be tolerated by the vine, because it sears; nor an over-chilled one, since, as it were, stupified and congealed roots it does not allow to be moved by excessive cold; which only then bring themselves forth, when they are summoned by a moderate warmth. That moisture of the earth greater than is just rots the deposited seeds; conversely, excessive dryness abandons the plants of their natural nourishment, either altogether kills them, or makes them rough and over-parched; that over-dense earth does not suck in the heavenly waters, nor is easily aired-through, is very easily burst, and offers cracks by which the sun penetrates to the roots of the plants; and that the same, as if the seeds were shut in and constricted, compresses and strangles them; that soil rare beyond measure transmits the showers as through a funnel, and by sun and wind is utterly dried out and withers; that heavy earth is scarcely conquered by any cultivation; light is scarcely sustained by any; the very fattest and most joyous suffers from luxuriance, the lean and thin toils under fasting.
He says there is need, among such diverse inequalities, of a great temperament, which is desired also in our bodies, whose good health is contained by hot and cold, moist and arid, dense and rare in a fixed and, as it were, weighed-out manner. Yet he says that this temperament in soil destined for vineyards ought not to be balanced with equal weight, but to be more inclined to the other side: that the earth be warmer rather than colder, drier rather than wetter, rarer rather than denser, and, if there are any similar points, to these the one who will institute vineyards should direct his contemplation. All of which, as I think, are more helpful when the state of the sky also lends its suffrage; concerning which region the vineyards ought to face, there is an old disagreement, Saserna most of all approving the rising of the sun, next then the south, then the setting; Tremellius Scrofa deeming the southern position the chief; Virgil deliberately repudiating the west thus:
Democrito et Magone laudantibus caeli plagam septentrionalem, quia existiment ei subiectas feracissimas fieri vineas, quae tamen bonitate vini superentur. Nobis in universum praecipere optimum visum est, ut in locis frigidis meridiano vineta subiciantur; tepidis orienti advertantur, si tamen non infestabuntur Austris Eurisque velut orae maritimae in Baetica. Sin autem regiones praedictis ventis fuerint obnoxiae, melius Aquiloni vel Favonio committentur.
Democritus and Mago praise the northern quarter of the sky, because they think that vineyards subjected to it become most fertile, yet they are surpassed in the goodness of the wine. To us it has seemed best to prescribe in general that in cold places vineyards be subjected to the south; in mild ones let them be turned to the east, provided, however, that they will not be infested by the Auster and the Eurus, as the maritime shores in Baetica are. But if the regions are liable to the aforesaid winds, they will be better committed to Aquilo or to Favonius.
XIII. Eius autem ratio cum Italici generis futuris agricolis tum etiam provincialibus tradenda est, quoniam in longinquis et remotis fere regionibus istud genus vertendi et subigendi agri minime usurpatur, sed aut scrobibus aut sulcis plerumque vineae conseruntur. <Scrobibus vineta sic ponuntur>. Quibus vitem mos est scrobibus deponere, fere per tres longitudinis, perque duos pedes in altitudinem cavato solo, quantum latitudo ferramenti patitur, malleolos utrimque iuxta latera fossarum consternunt; et adversis scrobium frontibus curvatos erigunt; duabusque gemmis supra terram eminere passi reposita humo cetera coaequant; quae faciunt in eadem linea intermissis totidem pedum scammis, dum peragant ordinem. Tum deinde relicto spatio, prout cuique mos est vineas colendi vel aratro vel bidente, sequentem ordinem instituunt.
13. Its method is to be handed down both to future farmers of the Italian stock and also to provincials, since in far and remote regions for the most part that kind of turning and subduing the field is hardly employed, but vineyards are commonly planted either by pits or by furrows. <By pits vineyards are thus set.> For those whose custom it is to lay down the vine in pits, with the ground excavated for about three feet in length and for two feet in depth, as much as the width of the iron tool allows, they strew the cuttings on both sides next to the sides of the trenches; and along the opposing fronts of the pits they set up the bent ones; and, having allowed two buds to project above the earth, when the soil has been replaced they level the rest; they do this on the same line with intervals of an equal number of feet left between, until they carry through the row. Then, after leaving a space, according as each one’s custom is of cultivating vineyards either with the plough or with the two-pronged hoe, they establish the next row.
And if the soil is turned only by a digger, the minimum inter-row spacing is five feet, the maximum seven; but if by oxen and a plough, the minimum is seven feet, ten is sufficiently ample. Some, however, arrange every vine at ten feet in a quincunx, so that, in the manner of fallow-lands, the soil may be ploughed up with transverse and opposing furrows. This kind of vineyard is not advantageous to the farmer, unless where in a most fertile soil the vine rises with ample growth.
But those who shrink from the expense of pastination, yet still strive in some part to imitate pastination, lay out furrows of 6 feet in breadth, with equal alternate spaces left out; and they dig them and deepen them to 3 feet, and along the sides of the ditches they set the vine or the malleolus (cutting). Some, more stingily, make the trench 2¾ feet deep and 5 feet wide; then they leave an uncultivated space three times as great, and so sink the next furrow. When they have done this through the area prescribed for the vineyards, on the sides of the furrows they set up nursery-roots or very fresh cut young shoots, planting several malleoli among the regular seed-rows; and after these have gained strength, they will propagate them into the raw soil that has been left, by transverse pits, and arrange the vineyard at equal intervals.
But those vineyard sowings which we have recounted are, according to the nature and benignity of each region, either to be adopted or to be repudiated by us. Now the purpose is to hand down the method of pastination of the field. And first of all, whether we have destined for vines an arbustum or a woodland place, every shrub and tree ought to be dug out and removed, lest afterward it delay the digger, and lest the soil already pastinated be pressed by the masses lying there, and be trampled by the ingress of those exporting the branches and trunks.
For it is not of little moment that the pastination be kept as raised as possible, and, if it can be done, inviolate even by a footprint; so that the soil, moved evenly, may gently yield to the roots of the new seed wherever it creeps, and not by its hardness beat back the growths, but may receive them, as if <in> a nurturing bosom, and admit the heavenly showers, and dispense them for the nourishing of the seedlings, and with all its parts conspire to bring forth a new offspring. Level ground ought to be dug down to two feet and a half in depth; a sloping region to three; but a more precipitous hill should be turned even to four feet, because when the soil is drawn from the upper part to the lower, it scarcely affords a proper backfill for pastination, unless you make a bank much higher than you would on the plain. Conversely, in sunken valleys, it is not approved to set the vine down at less than two feet deep.
For it is preferable not to plant than to suspend on the surface soil; unless at once marshy moisture, as in the Ravennate country, encounters you and forbids digging in more than a foot-and-a-half. But the beginning of the aforesaid work is this: not, as most farmers of our time do, to raise the furrow little by little, and thus by a second or third step to reach the appointed depth of pastination, but straightway, with the line set evenly, to lead out a continuous trench with straight sides, and to arrange the soil moved behind and press it down so far, until it has taken the assigned measure of depth. Then over the whole span of the step the line must be moved evenly, and it must be secured that the same breadth is rendered at the bottom as was begun at the top.
There is need, moreover, of a skilled and watchful exactor (overseer), who may order the bank to be raised, the furrow to be emptied, and the whole space of raw soil to be commingled with the earth already removed, just as I prescribed in the earlier book, when I handed down the method of plowing, warning that nowhere benches be left, and that what is hard be covered with the top clods. But for carrying out this work, our ancestors, having contrived as it were a certain machine, fashioned a regula (rule), on whose side a projecting little rod, at the height to which it is proper for the furrow to be sunk, touches the top part of the bank. This kind of measure the rustics call the “stork.”
But that too admits of fraud, since it matters very much whether you set it prone or upright. We therefore added certain parts to this machine, which would resolve the lawsuit and disputation of the contenders. For we crossed two rules of the width with which the pastinator is going to make the furrow into the form of the Greek letter X, and thus at the middle part where the rules meet we fastened that ancient ciconia, so that, as if upon an underlying base, regulated to the perpendicular by a plumb, it would stand; then upon the transverse little rod, which is on the side, we placed a craftsman’s level.
Thus, when the assembled organ/apparatus has been let down into the furrow, it separates the dispute of owner and contractor without injustice. For the “star,” which we said had the appearance of the Greek letter X, equally measures and perfectly levels the bottom of the deepest ditch, because whether it is prone or turned back, it is detected by the position of the machine. Indeed, the level placed upon the aforesaid little rod shows the one or the other, nor does it allow the exactor of the work to be deceived.
Thus the work, having been thoroughly measured and perfectly leveled, always proceeds in the likeness of a once‑ploughed fallow (vervactum); and only as much space is occupied by the line when extended as the excavated furrow holds in length and breadth. And this kind of preparing the soil is most approved.
XIV. Sequitur opus vineae conserendae, quae vel vere vel autumno tempestive deponitur. Vere melius, si aut pluvius aut frigidus status caeli est, aut ager pinguis <aut campestis> et uliginosa planities; rursus autumno, si sicca, si calida est aeris qualitas; si exilis atque aridus campus, si macer praeruptusve collis; vernaeque positionis dies fere quadraginta sunt ab idibus Februariis usque in aequinoctium; rursus autumnalis ab Idibus Octob. in Kal.
14. Next follows the work of planting the vineyard, which is seasonably set down either in spring or in autumn. In spring it is better, if either the state of the sky is rainy or cold, or the field is rich <or level> and the plain is marshy; conversely in autumn, if the quality of the air is dry, if it is warm; if the field is thin and arid, if the hill is lean or precipitous; and the days for a springtime setting are about forty from the Ides of February up to the equinox; conversely, the autumnal from the Ides of October to the Kalends.
This method of sowing very many cultivators of Italy have with justice disapproved, since the viviradix excels by very many endowments. For it perishes less, since it more easily sustains both heat and cold and the other weather on account of its firmness; then it comes to maturity earlier. Whence it comes about that it is also the sooner seasonable for yielding fruits; then too there is no doubt that, being more often transplanted, * * however a malleolus can forthwith, in place of a viviradix, be planted in loosened and easy soil.
XV. Seritur ergo [in] emundata inoccataque et aequata pastinatione, macro solo quinis pedibus inter ordines omissis, mediocri senis. In pingui vero septenum pedum spatia danda sunt, quo largiora vacent intervalla, per quae frequentes prolixaeque materiae diffundantur. Haec in quincuncem vinearum metatio expeditissima ratione conficitur.
15. It is therefore planted [in] a cleaned, harrowed-in, and leveled pastination; in lean soil with five feet left between the rows, in medium with six. In rich soil indeed spaces of seven feet must be given, so that the intervals may lie more ample, through which numerous and long canes may be spread. This marking-out of vineyards into a quincunx is accomplished by a most expeditious method.
Indeed, a line is stitched with purple, or with any other conspicuous color, for just as many feet as you have assigned for the spaces between the rows. And this, thus denoted, is stretched across the repastinated ground, and next to the purple a reed is fixed. And so the rows are directed at equal intervals.
When this has then been done, the digger follows, and, leaving alternate spaces out, he re-digs the pit in order, from the calamus to the next calamus, not less deep than two feet and a half in level places; on slopes to two and three quarters, and on steep ground even to three feet. With the pits sunk to this measure, the live-roots are so laid down that from the middle of the scrob each is spread in a different direction, and they are set upright toward the calami along the opposing faces of the trenches. But the planter’s duty is first to transfer from the nursery a plant as very fresh as possible, and, if it can be done, at the very same moment at which he wishes to plant, carefully taken out and entire; then to prune it all, as if it were a veteran vine, and reduce it to one most sturdy cane (materia), and to lighten (trim down) the nodes and scars; and if any roots—as is especially to be guarded against from happening in the taking out—have suffered damage, to cut them off; then to lay it down curved in such a way that the roots of two vines may not become entangled.
For that, indeed, is easy to avoid by arranging a few stones along the lowest soil next to the opposite sides of the trenches, each individual stone not exceeding a 5-pound weight. These, as Mago records, seem to repel from the roots both the waters of winter and the vapors of summer; and, following him, Virgil bids that the seeds be protected and fortified thus:
Idemque Poenus auctor probat vinacea permixta stercori depositis seminibus in scrobe admovere, quod illa provocent et eliciant novas radiculas; hoc per hiemem frigentem et humidam scrobibus inferre calorem tempestivum, ac per aestatem virentibus alimentum et humorem praebere. Si vero solum, cui vitis committitur, videtur exile, longius arcessitam pinguem humum scrobibus inferre censet: quod an expediat, regionis annona operarumque ratio nos docebit.
And the same Punic author approves applying grape-pressings (pomace) mixed with dung to the pit after the seeds have been set, because these provoke and draw out new little rootlets; this, through a cold and moist winter, brings into the pits a seasonable heat, and through the summer provides aliment and humor for the green plants. If indeed the soil to which the vine is committed seems meager, he thinks that rich earth fetched from farther away should be brought into the pits: whether this is expedient, the provisioning of the region and the reckoning of labors will teach us.
XVI. Exigue humidum pastinatum sationi convenit; melius tamen vel arido quam lutoso semen committitur; idque cum supra summam scrobem compluribus internodiis productum est, quod de cacumine superest, duabus gemmis tantum supra terram relictis amputatur, et ingesta humo scribibus completis coaequato; deinceps pastinato malleolus ordinariis vitibus interserendus est: eumque sat erit medio spatio, quod vacat inter vites, per unam lineam depangerre. Sic enim melius et ipse convalescet, et ordinariis seminibus modice vacuum solum ad culturam praebebitur. In eadem deinde linea, in qua viviradix obtinebit ordinem suum praesidii causa, quorum ex numero propagari possint in locum demortuae vitis, quinque malleoli pangendi sunt per spatium pedale; isque pes ita medio interordinio sumitur, ut ab utraque vite paribus intervallis distent.
16. A slightly moist trenched ground suits the sowing; yet it is better to commit the seed even to dry rather than to muddy soil; and when it has been brought forth above the top of the pit by several internodes, what remains of the tip is cut off, with only two buds left above the ground, and, earth having been brought in, the pits are filled and leveled; thereafter, in the trenched ground a cutting (malleolus) is to be interplanted among the ordinary vines: and it will suffice to drive it down along a single line in the middle space that lies vacant between the vines. For thus both it will itself thrive better, and a modestly open soil will be afforded to the ordinary plantings for cultivation. Then in the same line, in which the live-root (viviradix) will hold its place, as a safeguard—five cuttings are to be planted at a foot’s interval, from whose number some can be propagated into the place of a dead vine; and this foot is so taken in the middle inter-row that they are distant by equal intervals from each vine on either side.
XVII. De positione surculi non minima disputatio fuit inter auctores. Quidam totum flagellum, sicut erat matri detractum, crediderunt sationi convenire; idque per gemmas quinas vel etiam senas partiti, complures taleolas terrae mandaverunt. Quod ego minime probo, magisque assentior his auctoribus, qui negaverunt esse idoneam frugibus superiorem partem materiae, solamque eam, quae est iuncta cum vetere sarmento probaverunt, ceterum omnem sagittam repudiaverunt.
XVII. On the position of the shoot there was no small disputation among the authors. Certain men believed that the whole whip, just as it had been taken off from the mother, was suitable for planting; and, divided by five or even six buds, they consigned several little cuttings to the earth. This I by no means approve; rather I assent to those authors who denied the upper part of the material to be suitable for fruits, and approved only that which is joined to the old cane, but repudiated every “arrow.”
The rustics call “the arrow” the newest part of the shoot, either because it has retreated farther from the mother and, as it were, shot forth and leaped out; or because, thinned at the tip, it bears the appearance of the aforesaid missile. This, therefore, the most prudent agriculturists have said ought not to be planted; nor, however, did they disclose the reason for their opinion—evidently because to them, being very practiced in the rustic art, it was plain and almost set before their eyes. For every fruitful vine-shoot abounds with fruit within the fifth or sixth bud; in the remaining part, however long, it either stops, or shows very tiny clusters, for which cause the sterility of the tip has rightly been accused by the ancients.
The malleolus, however, was planted by those same men in such a way that to the new shoot some portion of the old material adhered. But practice condemned this position. For whatever of the old material had been left, pressed down and buried, would quickly putrefy from moisture, and by its own defect would kill the nearest tender roots, scarcely yet creeping forth; and when this had happened, the upper part of the seedling would dry back.
XVIII. Sed Iulius Atticus praetorto capite et recurvato, ne pastinum effugiat, praedictum semen demersit. Pastinum autem vocant agricolae ferramentum bifurcum, quo semina panguntur. Unde etiam repastinari dictae sunt vineae veteres, quae refodiebantur.
18. But Julius Atticus, with the head pre-twisted and recurved, sank the aforesaid seed, lest it escape the pastinum. Farmers, moreover, call a two‑forked iron implement, by which seeds are planted, the “pastinum.” Whence also old vineyards, which were re-dug, were said to be repastinated.
This, indeed, was the proper appellation of a restibilis vineyard; now the unwitting custom of antiquity calls repastinated whatever portion of removed soil is prepared for vineyards. But <let us return> to the subject. Faulty, as my opinion bears, is the planting of Julius Atticus, which takes in the cutting with twisted heads; and there is not a single reason for avoiding this practice, first, because no stock is harried before it is set down, and the broken thrives better than that which, entire and inviolate, has been laid without injury; then, whatever has been plunged in curved and looking upward, when it is taken out at the due time, resists, after the fashion of a hook, the digger who strives against it, and, like a barb fastened in the soil, before it is drawn out, it is snapped off.
For the material is fragile in that part where, twisted and recurved, when it was being set down, it had taken on a defect. Because of which, when broken off, it loses the greater part of the roots. But, to pass over those inconveniences, certainly this, which is most inimical, I cannot conceal; for a little before, when I was discussing the topmost part of the shoot (which I had said is called the “arrow”), I was inferring that almost within the fifth or sixth bud, which are nearest to the old shoot, fruit is produced.
Therefore he consumes this fruitful part who twists the malleolus (cutting); since that part which is doubled back holds three or four buds (gems), and the remaining two or three fruit-bearing eyes are pressed wholly into the earth, and, being submerged, they create not wood but roots. Thus it comes about that what we avoided in the “arrow” (sagitta) not to be planted, that we pursue in a malleolus of this sort, which it is necessary to make longer if we wish to set the twisted one. Nor is there any doubt that the buds nearest the tip, which are infecund, are left on it, from which pampini sprout either sterile or certainly less fertile, which the rustics call racemarii.
What of the fact, which matters most, that the cutting which is planted should coalesce on the side on which it was cut off from the mother, and should quickly draw a cicatrix? For if this has not been done, as through a pipe, so through the open pith of the vine an excessive moisture is drawn, and the same hollows out the trunk; whence hiding-places are afforded to ants and other animals which putrefy the legs of the vines. This, moreover, happens with twisted cuttings.
For when, through removal, their lowest parts are snapped off, the opened marrows are laid down and, with waters creeping in and the aforesaid animals, they age quickly. Wherefore the best method of planting is the straight malleolus, whose lowest head, when it has been engaged with the bifurcate pastinum, is easily held and pressed down by the narrow jaws of the iron implement: and that twig thus pressed down coalesces more quickly. For it also sends out roots from the head where it was cut off, and when these have grown, they draw a cicatrix over it; and otherwise the wound itself, looking downward, does not receive as much moisture as that which, bent back and turned upward, in the manner of a funnel transmits through the medulla whatever of the celestial waters has overflowed.
XIX. Longitudo, quae debeat esse malleoli, parum certa est, quoniam sive crebras gemmas habet, brevior faciendus est; seu raras, longior. Attamen nec maior pede nec dodrante minor esse debet: hic ne per summa terrae sitiat aestatibus; ille ne depressus altius cum adoleverit, exemptionem difficilem praebeat. Sed haec in plano.
XIX. The length which the malleolus ought to have is rather uncertain, since if it has thick-set buds, it must be made shorter; if sparse, longer. Yet it ought to be neither greater than a foot nor less than a dodrans (three-quarters of a foot): the former, lest through the topmost soil it suffer thirst in summers; the latter, lest, sunk deeper, when it has grown up it present a difficult extraction. But these things are on level ground.
Now on sloping places, where the soil runs, one can plant a palmipedal cutting. The site of a valley and of uliginous fields even allows a trigemmis, which is a little less than a dodrans, yet in any case longer than a half‑foot. And it is not called trigemmis because it has altogether three eyes, but because—those excepted, with which it is frequent on the very head—it has three joints in succession and just as many buds.
Over and above the rest, I also forewarn whoever is planting either a malleolus or a viviradix, not to let the plantings dry out, and to avoid immoderate wind and sun, both of which are not inconveniently warded off by the interposition of a garment or of any dense covering. Nevertheless, it is better to choose for the planting a day of still air, or at least of a placid breeze. For the sun is easily driven off by little shades.
But this also, which we have not yet delivered, must be said before we set a closure upon the disputation: whether vines of one or of several genera ought to be maintained, and whether they should be separated and distinct specifically, or confused and mixed en masse. First we shall discourse about that which we first proposed.
XX. Prudentis igitur agricolae est vitem, quam praecipue probaverit, nulla interveniente alterius notae stirpe conserere. Sed et providentis est, diversa quoque genera deponere. Neque enim umquam sic mitis ac temperatus est annus, ut nullo incommodo vexet aliquod vitis genus.
20. Therefore, it belongs to a prudent farmer to plant the vine which he has especially approved, with no stock of another mark intervening. But it also belongs to a provident man to set down diverse kinds as well. For the year is never so mild and temperate as not to vex some genus of vine with some inconvenience.
For if it is dry, that which thrives on moisture is distressed; or if pluvial, that which rejoices in droughts; or if frigid and frosty, that which is not patient of mildew; or if burning, that which does not endure the heat. And, not to pursue now the thousand injuries of the weather, there is always something that offends the vineyards. Therefore, if we plant a single kind, when that happens which is harmful to it, we shall be deprived of the whole vintage.
For there will be no relief for one who has not had stocks of diverse marks. But if we shall have made vineyards of various kinds, something among them will be inviolate, to carry fruit. Yet that reason ought not to drive us to many varieties of vines; rather, the kind which we have judged select, let us effect in as great a multitude as we can; then that which is next to the first; then that which is of the third mark, or even the fourth; up to that point let us be, as it were, content with a certain tetrad of athletes.
For it is enough to await the fortune of the vintage through four, or at most five, kinds. As to the second point, which I had presently proposed, I do not doubt at all that the vines must be sorted by species and arranged in their own gardens, to be distinguished by paths and by decumani; not that either I myself have been able to obtain this from my household, or that before me anyone of those who most approved it has brought it to effect. For it is the most difficult of all rustic works, because it both demands the utmost diligence in selecting seeds, and in distinguishing these there is for the most part need of the greatest felicity and prudence; but sometimes (as the divine author Plato says) the beauty of the thing draws us, even to pursue those things which, on account of the infirmity of mortal nature, we cannot attain.
This, however, if time of life should suffice, and science and faculty be congruent with will, we shall accomplish not with the greatest difficulty; although it will be necessary to persevere for no small span of time, so that a great number may be distinguished over several years. For not every season permits a judgment of this matter. For the vines, which on account of similarity of color or of the trunk and tendrils cannot be distinguished, are declared by mature fruit and leaves.
Yet I would not affirm that such diligence can be exhibited by any save the paterfamilias himself. For to have entrusted it to the villicus, or even to the vinedresser, is the mark of a sluggard, since—although it is far easier—up to now it has befallen very few farmers to be without a stock of black wine, although the color of the grape can be detected even by the most unskilled.
XXI. Illa tamen una mihi ratio suppetit, celerrime quod proposuimus efficiendi, si sint veteranae vineae, ut separatos surculos cuiusque generis per singulos hortos inseramus: sic paucis annis multa nos milia malleolorum ex insitis percepturos, atque ita discreta semina per regiones consituros nihil dubito. Eius porro faciendae rei nos utilitas multis de causis compellere potest: et ut a levioribus incipiam, primum, quod in omni ratione vitae non solum agricolationis, sed cuiusque disciplinae prudentem delectant impensius ea, quae propriis generibus distinguuntur, quam quae passim velut abiecta et quodam acervo confusa sunt. Deinde quod vel alienissimus rusticae vitae, si in agrum tempestive <consitum> veniat, summa cum voluptate naturae benignitatem miretur, cum istinc Bituricae fructibus opimae, hinc pares iis heluolae respondeant; illinc arcelacae, rursus illinc spioniae basilicaeve conveniant, quibus alma tellus annua vice velut aeterno quodam puerperio laeta mortalibus distenta musto demittit ubera.
21. Yet that one method occurs to me, for accomplishing most swiftly what we have proposed, if there are veteran vineyards: namely, that we graft separate shoots of each kind throughout individual gardens; thus in a few years I do not doubt that we shall receive many thousands of cuttings from the grafted stock, and so plant the distinct seeds/stocks throughout the regions. Moreover, utility can compel us to do this for many reasons: and, to begin from the lighter ones, first, that in every rationale of life—not only of agriculture, but of any discipline—the prudent are more earnestly delighted by those things which are distinguished by their proper kinds, than by those which everywhere, as if cast away, are confused in a sort of heap. Then, because even one most alien to rustic life, if he should come into a field seasonably <planted>, would with the greatest delight admire the benignity of nature, when on this side the Bituricae, rich in fruits, and on that side the Helvolae, equal to them, answer; there the Arcelacae, again there the Spioniae or Basilicae, come together—unto which the nourishing earth, in an annual turn, as if in a kind of eternal childbirth, joyful, lets down her breasts distended with must to mortals.
Amid which, with Father Liber favoring, with fruitful vine-shoots either of the white kind or of the yellowing and rutilant, or flashing with a purple sheen, autumn on every side, heavy with many-colored fruits, shines brightly. But although these delight very greatly, yet utility conquers pleasure. For the paterfamilias more willingly goes down to gaze upon his own estate, the more resplendent it is; and, as the poet says about the sacred numen:
verum quocumque domini praesentis oculi frequenter accessere, in ea parte maiorem in modum fructus exuberat. Sed omitto illud, quod indescriptis etiam vitibus contingere potest: illa quae sunt maxime spectanda, persequar. Diversae notae stirpes nec pariter deflorescunt, nec ad maturitatem simul perveniunt.
but wherever the eyes of the present master have frequently approached, in that part the fruit abounds in greater measure. But I pass over that point, which can befall even vines not set out in rows: I will pursue those things which are most to be looked upon. Stocks of diverse mark neither finish flowering equally, nor do they arrive at ripeness at the same time.
For which cause, he who does not have vineyards separated by genera must needs suffer one or the other inconvenience: either he harvests the late fruit together with the early-ripening, which thing soon produces acidity/sourness; or, if he awaits the ripeness of the late-ripening, he loses the early vintage, which for the most part, harried by the depredations of birds and by rains or winds, slips away. But if indeed he desires to take the fruit of each kind by interjected pickings, first it is necessary that he incur another [loss] from the negligence of the vintagers; for he cannot give to individuals an equal number of overseers who may observe and may instruct that unripe grapes not be cut <with the ripe ones>; then too, when the ripeness of the vines coincides, since the varieties are diverse, the better taste is corrupted by the worse, and the flavor of many, confused into one, becomes impatient of age. And therefore necessity compels the farmer to try the must-market; although a great deal is added to the price, if the sale can be deferred either to the next year or at any rate to the summer.
Now that separation of kinds has the utmost convenience, because the vinedresser will more easily render to each its own pruning, since he knows of what note (variety) is the plot which he is pruning; and this is difficult to be observed in co-sown vineyards, because the greater part of the pruning is carried on at that time when the vine bears no noticeable leaf. But it matters much whether the vinedresser lets more or fewer canes be put forth according to the nature of each stock, whether he urges it on with long whips, or restrains the vine with close pruning. Nay, even which part of the sky each kind of vineyard faces makes very much difference.
For not every vine rejoices in a warm condition, nor again in a cold; but there is a proper nature in the shoots, such that some grow strong under the meridian axis, because they are vitiated by rigor; others desire the North, because they are saddened by heat; certain ones are gladdened by the temperament of the East or of the West. He who separates the kinds through his gardens preserves these differences according to the site and position of the places. That likewise no small utility follows: he endures both less labor of the vintage and less expense.
For as each [kind] begins to ripen, they are gathered in timely fashion, and the grapes which have not yet taken maturity are deferred without loss. Nor does withered and timely fruit together precipitate the vintage, and force one to hire hands repeatedly at whatever price. Moreover, this too is a great endowment: to be able to lay down the taste of each variety not mixed but truly pure, and to put it away separately, whether it be Bituricus, or basilicus, or spionicus.
Which kinds, when thus diffused, because nothing of a diverse nature intervenes that might repugn perpetuity, are ennobled. For neither after fifteen years or a little more can ignobility be detected in the taste, since almost all wine has been allotted this quality: that by age it acquires goodness. Wherefore, as we have set out to say, the disposition of the kinds is most useful; which, if nevertheless you cannot obtain, the second course is that, of a different mark, you plant no other vines than those which offer a similar savor and the fruit of the same maturity.
You can now, if the care of fruit-trees touches you, in the farthest rows at that end of the vineyard which lies under the north, lest when they have increased they overshadow, plant firmly the tops of figs, pears, and apples, which you may either graft with an interval of two years interposed, or, if they are of noble stock, transfer when adult. Thus far concerning the position of vineyards. The most ancient part remains, that we may prescribe also their cultivation, about which in the following volume we will discourse at greater length.