Chap. 35.] CULTURE OF THE VIKE. 499 



unless there is some good reason for sparing them. When this 

 is done, they throw out eyes, and with these upon them at the 

 end of three years the quicksets are transplanted. 



There is another method, also, of planting 1 the vine," which 

 a luxurious refinement in these matters has introduced. Pour 

 mallet-shoots are tightly fastened together with a cord in the 

 greenest part, and when thus arranged are passed through the 

 shank-bone of an ox or else a tube of baked earth, after which 

 they are planted in the ground, care being taken to leave a 

 couple of buds protruding : in this way they become impreg- 

 nated with moisture, and, immediately on being cut, throw out 

 fresh wood. The tube is then broken, upon which the root, 

 thus set at liberty, assumes fresh vigour, and the clusters 2 ulti- 

 mately bear upon them grapes belonging to the four kinds 

 thus planted together. 



In consequence of a more recent discovery, another method 

 has been adopted. A mallet-shoot is split down the middle 

 and the pith extracted, after which the two portions are fastened 

 together, every care being taken not to injure the buds. The 

 mallet-shoot is then planted in a mixture of earth and manure, 

 and when it begins to throw out branches it is cut, the ground 

 being repeatedly dug about it. Columella 3 assures us that the 

 grapes of this plant will have no stones, but it is a more sur- 

 prising thing that the slip itself should survive when thus de- 

 prived of the pith. 4 Still, however, I think I ought not to 

 omit the fact that there are some slips that grow without the or- 

 dinary articulations of trees upon them ; thus, for instance, five 

 or six very small sprigs of box, 5 if tied together and put in 

 the ground, will take root. It was formerly made a point to 

 take these sprigs from a box-tree that had not been lopped, as 

 it was fancied that in the last case they would not live ; expe- 

 rience, however, has since put an end to that notion. 



The culture of the vineyard naturally follows the training 

 of the nursery. There are five 6 different kinds of vine: that 



1 This method is no longer used. 



2 This, Fee remarks, is not the case : the tree might bear four kinds of 

 grapes, but not four kinds on the same bunch. 



3 De Arbor, c. 9. This is not the fact. 



4 He was little aware", Fee says, that all ligneous plants have a radiating 

 pith, distinct from the central one. 5 See B. xvi. c. 72. 



6 Oliver de Serres distinguishes only three— the low, middling, and tall 

 vines. 



Ki2 



