I] FARM LAND 33 



lest the bunch be unable to learn how to hang on 

 the twig until the vintage be over, and then have to 

 be taught by means of a string or the band which 

 the ancients used to call a cestus,^ 



As soon as the owner sees the back of the grape- 

 picker, he takes back home the little forked sticks to 

 spend the winter there, that he may make use of 

 their services without further expense another year. 

 7 In Italy the men of Reate adopt this practice. These 

 differences in method depend mostly upon differ- 

 ences of soil, for when the latter is naturally damp, 

 the vine must be grown high, for wine, when it is 

 being generated and grown, needs no water — as it 

 does afterwards in the wine-cup — but sun. And 

 this is the reason, I think, why the vine-shoot in 

 the first place climbs up from the vine into trees. 



CHAPTER IX 



FARM LAND 



I It is important, as I said before, to know the 

 nature of the land and for what it is good, or the 

 reverse. The term '* land " is used in three senses — 



* Ne vindemia facta. Columella, iv, 26 (end), remarks that 

 if the shoot be tied under the support [iugum)y and is other- 

 wise unsupported, the weight of the growing bunch of grapes 

 will cause it to break. Varro jests here more suo. The educa- 

 tion of the bunch will be neglected ; it will not learn to hang 

 properly until it is dead and hung up in the store-room. 



P 



