BOOK XVII. XXIV. 114-X.XV. 117 



tiles blocked up at each end with earth ; but it is 

 thought that vine-cuttings are best stored in dry 

 ditches, under a covering of straw, with earth then 

 piled over them so as to let their tops protrude. 



XXV. Cato " has three ways of grafting a vine : aTafHng 

 he advises cutting the stock short and spHtting it '^"**' 

 through the pith, and then inserting into it the 

 shoots after sharpening them at the end in the manner 

 stated above, and making the cambium ^ of the two § 106- 

 meet ; the second method is, in case the vines are con- 

 tiguous with one another, to pare down on a slant 

 the side of each that faces the other and to tie them 

 together with the cambiums joined ; and the third is to 

 bore a slanting hole in the vine down to the pith 

 and insert sHps a couple of feet long, and to tie the 

 graft in that position and cover it up with a plaster of 

 pounded earth, with the shoots upright. Our genera- 

 tion has improved on this method, so as to employ a 

 GalHc auger which makes a hole in the tree without 

 scorching it, becaase all scorching weakens it, and 

 to select a sHp that is beginning to bud, and not 

 to let it protrude from the stock by more than two 

 eyes, . . . of an elm . . . tied on with a withe . . . 

 puttworound . . . on two sides with a knife,<^ so that 

 the sHme which is the greatest enemy of vines may 

 chiefly exude through them, and then when the whips 

 have made two feet of growth, to cut the tie of the 

 graft, aHowing its growth to make thickness. They 

 have fixed the time for grafting vines from the 

 autumn equinox tiH the beginning of budding. 

 Cultivated plants are grafted on roots of wild 

 ones, which are of a closer texture, whereas if sHps 

 of cultivated plants are grafted on the trunks of 

 wild ones they degenerate to the wild variety. 



8t 



