BOOK III. HI. 9-13 



interest on 32,480 sesterces. For, assuming that the 10 

 vineyards are of the very worst sort, still, if taken 

 care of, they will yield certainly one culleus of wine 

 to the iugerum ; and even though every forty urns 

 are sold for 300 sesterces, which is the lowest market 

 price, nevertheless seven cullei make a total of 2100 

 sesterces — a sum far in excess of the interest at six 

 per cent. And these figures, as we have given 11 

 them, take account of the calculations of Graecinus. 

 But our own opinion is that vineyards which yield 

 less than three cullei to the iugerum should be rooted 

 out. And, even so, we have made our calculations 

 up to this point as if there were no quicksets " to be 

 taken from the trenched ground; though this item 

 alone, at a favourable price, would clear the entire 

 cost of the land, if only the land belongs, not to the 

 provinces, but to Italy. And no one should be 12 

 skeptical of this statement when he distinguishes 

 between my method and that of Julius Atticus ; 

 for I am now planting between the rows 20,000 

 mallet-shoots * to every iugerum of vineyard, while 

 he sets out four thousand fewer." Assuming that 

 his way is the better one, still no ground, even 

 the most unfavourable, will fail to yield a return 

 exceeding the expense incurred ; since, even though 13 

 6000 of the plants die through the carelessness of 

 the vinedresser, still the remaining 10,000 will be 

 purchased by contract-vineyardists, cheerfully and 

 at a profit, for 3000 sesterces. This sum exceeds 

 by one third the 2000 sesterces which we have 

 named above as the cost of planting one iugerum 

 of vines, and yet our own management has now 

 progressed to the point where husbandmen are not 



" Cf. Chap. 16, sec. 3, below. 



261 



