BOOK III. XI. 2-5 



all if we wish to replant them, because the lower 

 soil is imprisoned in a tangle of many roots, as if 

 caught in a net, and has not yet lost that infection 

 and rottenness of old age by which the earth is 

 deadened and numbed as if by some poison or 

 other." For this reason a piece of wild land is an 3 

 especially good choice, and even if occupied with 

 bushes or trees it is easily cleared, because all things 

 that spring up naturally do not push their roots far 

 nor to a great depth, but spread and extend them 

 through the surface soil ; and when they are cut off 

 with the axe and are rooted out, the little that 

 remains in the lower soil may be dug up with 

 mattocks and brought together and heaped up for 

 fermentation. But if you should have no unbroken 

 ground, the next choice is ploughed land that is 

 free of trees. Failing this, there is allotted to 

 vineyards a plantation of trees and vines standing 

 very far apart, or an olive grove — but preferably 

 old olive trees which have not been wedded to 

 vines. Last of all, as I have said, is the renewing 4 

 of a worn-out vineyard. Now if circumstances 

 make this necessary, all remaining parts of the 

 vines should first be rooted out ; then all the 

 ground should be fertilized with dry dung or, if this 

 is not available, with the freshest manure of another 

 sort ; and so it should be turned over, and all the 

 unearthed roots must be very carefully brought to 

 the surface and burned ; and then again the dug 

 ground should be covered generously either with old 

 manure, because that does not produce weeds, or with 

 earth brought from the bramble thickets. But M'here 5 



" In De Arb. 3. 5, Columella advises against the replanting 

 of old vineyard ground until after it has rested ten years. 



301 



