BOOK III. XVI. 2-x\ii. 3 



foot of space, as reserves from whose number it 

 may be possible to set a slip in place of a vine that 

 has died ; and this foot is taken from the middle space 

 between the rows in such a way as to be equally dis- 

 tant from the vines on either side. Julius Atticus 

 considers 16,000 cuttings enough for this kind of 

 planting. But we plant 4000 more, because a large 

 number of them are lost through the carelessness 

 of the vinedressers, while the rest, that do thrive, 

 are thinned out by the deaths of the young plants. 



XVII. On the matter of setting the shoot there 

 has been no little dispute among authorities. Some 

 have held that the whole rod, just as it was pulled 

 from the parent vine, is proper for planting ; and 

 dividing this into sections with five or even six eyes 

 each, they committed the several slips to the earth. 

 This I by no means approve, agreeing rather with 

 those authorities who have said that the upper part 

 of the branch is not suitable for bearing fruit, and 

 who gave their approval rather to that part wliich is 

 joined to the old branch. But they wholly rejected 

 the " arrow." Farmers give the name " ai*row "to 

 the extreme portion of a shoot, either because it has 

 withdrawn farther from its mother and has, so to 

 speak, shot out and darted away from her, or 

 because, being drawn out into a point, it bears a 

 resemblance to the aforesaid missile.'* Our wisest I 

 husbandmen have said, then, that the arrow should 

 not be planted, and yet they have failed to give us 

 the reason for their opinion ; obviously because to 

 those men of much experience in agricultural alFairs 

 that reason was obvious and almost laid bare before 



sagittae vocantur, cum intorti panguntur, iidem cum recisi nee 

 intorti, trigtmmts. 



2^1 



