BOOK III. XII. 1-4 



Graecinus speaks as follows : That some land is hot 

 or cold, damp or dry, loose or compact, light or heavy, 

 fat or lean ; but that soil which is excessively hot 

 cannot support the vine, because it burns it, nor 

 can the very cold soil, because it allows no action of 

 the roots when they are benumbed and chilled, as 

 it were, by excessive cold, — for they extend them- 

 selves only when they are drawn out by moderate 

 warmth : that soil of more than the proper moisture 2 

 causes rotting of the plants that are set, while, on 

 the other hand, excessive dryness deprives the 

 plants of their natural sustenance and either kills 

 them entirely or makes them scaly and shrivelled : 

 that very compact ground does not absorb the rains, 

 does not readily allow the circulation of air, is very 

 easily broken through, and affords cracks through 

 which the sun penetrates to the roots of the plants ; 

 and the same binds and chokes the plants, which are, 

 so to speak, imprisoned and confined : that soil 3 

 which is immoderately loose allows rains to pass 

 through it as through a funnel, and is then com- 

 pletely dried out and parched by sun and wind : 

 that heavy ground can hardly be subdued by any cul- 

 tivation, while light ground can hardly be kept up by 

 any : that the fattest and most fertile soil suffers from 

 rankness of growth, the lean and poor soil from 

 barrenness. There is need, he says, of much 

 intermixture among these so different extremes, as 

 is requisite also in our own bodies, whose well-being 

 depends on a fixed and, so to speak, balanced propor- 

 tion of the hot and the cold, the moist and the dry, 

 the compact and the loose. And yet, in the case 4 

 of land which is designed for vineyards, he says that 

 this proportion should not be placed in equipoise but 



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