390 pliny's nattjeal history. [Book XVI. 



and die all of a sudden, being utterly exhausted by the too 

 favourable influence of the weather, a thing that happens to 

 the vine more particularly. 



(28.) On the other hand, the mulberry becomes aged 41 but 

 very slowly, and is never exhausted by its crops. Those trees, 

 too, the wood of which is variegated, arrive at old age but 

 slowly, — the palm, the maple, and the poplar, for instance. 



(29.) Trees grow old more rapidly when the earth is 

 ploughed and loosened about the 42 roots ; forest trees at a later 

 period. Speaking in general terms, we may say that care 

 employed in the culture of trees seems to promote their fer- 

 tility, while increased fertility accelerates old age. Hence it 

 is that the carefully tended trees are the first to blossom, and 

 the first to bud ; in a word, are the most precocious in every 

 respect : but all natural productions which are in any way 

 weakened are more susceptible of atmospheric influences. 



CHAP. 52. TEEES WHICH BEAR VAEIOTJS PEODTJCTS. CBAT^GT/M. 



Many trees bears more than one production, a fact which, 

 we have already mentioned 43 when speaking of the glandi- 

 ferous trees. In the number of these there is the laurel, 

 which bears its own peculiar kind of grape, and more parti- 

 cularly the barren laurel, 44 which bears nothing else ; for 

 which reason it is looked upon by some persons as the male 

 tree. The filbert, too, bears catkins, which are hard and com- 

 pact, but of no use 45 whatever. 



(30.) But it is the box- tree that supplies us with the great- 

 est number of products, not only its seed, but a berry also, 

 known by the name of cratsegum ; 46 while on the north side 



41 See B. xv. c. 27. The mulberry tree will live for several centuries. 



42 This stimulates the sap, and adds to its activity : but the tree grows 

 old all the sooner, being the more speedily exhausted. 



43 In cc. 9 — 14 of the present Book. 



44 This passage is quite unintelligible ; and it is with good reason that 

 Fee questions whether Pliny really understood the author that he copied 

 from. 



45 Fee remarks, that Pliny does not seem to know that the catkin is an 

 assemblage of flowers, and that without it the tree would be totally barren. 



46 Pliny blunders sadly here, in copying from Theophrastus, B. iii. c. 16. 

 He mixes up a description of the box and the Crataegus, or holm-oak, making 

 the latter to be a seed of the former : and he then attributes a mistletoe to 

 the box, which Theophrastus speaks of as growing on the Crataegus. 



