BOOK III. VI. 3 VII. 2 



wintry storms as well. Moreover, such a kind of 4 

 vine is not proved by one vintage ; for even a vine 

 that is naturally unfruitful may produce an abundant 

 yield a single time, either because of the bountiful- 

 ness of the year or for other reasons. But when 

 confidence in the shp has been established by the 

 completion of several years of campaigning, as it were, 

 there can be no doubt as to its fruitfulness. Yet 

 such an examination is not carried beyond a period 

 of four years ; for the quality of plants usually 

 becomes manifest in that period of time during v/hich 

 the sun returns to the same division of the zodiac 

 through the same signs by which it began its 

 circuit — a periodical course of fourteen hundred 

 and sixty-one entire days, which students of celestial 

 matters call dTroKarao-Taeris." 



VII. But I am sure, Publius Silvinus, that you have 

 long been inquiring in your own mind to what 

 variety that fruitful vine belongs which we are at 

 such pains to describe — whether one of those which 

 are commonly regarded as most prolific nowadays 

 is meant. For very many people are high in their 

 praise of the Bituric, many of the Spionian, some of 

 the Basilic, and several of the Arcelacan. We, too, 2 

 do not deprive these varieties of our approbation, 

 for they yield a very great quantity of wine ; but 

 we have resolved to teach the planting of vines of a 

 sort that ^\ill produce fruit in no less abundance 

 than the above-mentioned varieties, and that have 



" apocat a stasis, meaning the " restoration " of a previous 

 condition. 



1' sic acM : non fraudamus om. SA : non fraudamus tcsti- 

 monio nostro vulgo. 



271 



