BOOK III. XI. 8-xn. i 



opinion, is friendly to vineyards when it is moder- 

 ately well covered with earth, because, being cold and 

 retentive of moisture, it does not allow the roots to 

 thirst during the rising of the Dog-star. Hyginus 

 indeed, following Tremelius, asserts that the bases of 

 mountains, which have received the soil that washes 

 down from their summits, or even valley lands that 

 have been formed by the soil deposits of rivers and 

 floods, are especially suited for vineyards ; and I do 

 not disagree. Clayey soil is considered serviceable 9 

 for the vine : but, by itself, the clay which potters 

 use, and which some call argilla,'^ is most unfriendly ; 

 and no less so is hungry gravel and, as Julius Atticus 

 says, everything that makes a shrivelled shoot — that 

 being soil which is either wet or salty, or sour too, 

 or thirsty and extremely dry. Still the ancients 

 approved black and reddish sand when mixed witli 

 vigorous earth ; for they said that ground containing 

 red toph-stone, unless aided with manure, produced 

 puny vines. Ruddle, as the same Atticus says, is 10 

 heavy and does not offer roots an easy hold. 

 But the same soil is nourishing to the vine when once 

 it has obtained a hold, though it is more difficult to 

 work, since you cannot dig it when wet because it is 

 very sticky, nor when too dry because it is hard 

 beyond measure. 



XII. But that we may not now wander through 

 the endless varieties of soil, it will be not out of 

 place to call to mind a standard rule, as it were, of 

 Julius Graecinus which has been laid down for the ap- 

 praisal of land suitable for vineyards. For that same 

 " CJ. dpyiXXos, from dpyijs, white. 



aestimatio referetur terrae vinealis in nota coniecit et in 

 Corrigend. in Comment, ad quam iusta aestimatio scripsit. 



