BOOK V. VI. 10-13 



vine is applied and fastened, may receive more 

 sunlight. 



But if we have in view the sowing of cereals also, the 11 

 trees should be placed, if the soil is rich, at intervals 

 of forty feet from one another, but if it is thin and 

 nothing is planted in it, at intervals of twenty feet. 

 Then when they begin to grow tall, they must be 

 shaped with the pruning-hook and successive 



stages " must be arranged; for the husbandmen 

 call prominent branches and trunks by this name and 

 either cut them closer with the knife or let them grow 

 longer, that the vines may spread more loosely, the 

 latter process being better on rich soil, the former on 

 thin soil. The " stages " should be not less than 12 

 three feet apart from one another and so shaped 

 that an upper branch may not be in the same line 

 as a lower; for the lower branch will rub against 

 the budding shoot let down from the upper branch 

 and shake off the fruit. 



But whatever tree you plant, you should not prune 

 it during the next two years. Then afterwards, if 

 the elm receives only a little growth, in the spring, 

 before it sheds its bark, its top must be lopped off 

 near the small branch which appears to be the most 

 healthy, but in such a way as to leave above it on the 

 trunk a stump nine inches long, towards which the 

 branch can be trained and then applied and fastened, 

 that, when it has been thus caught, it may provide 

 a top for the tree. Then after a year the stump must 13 

 be cut away and the place smoothed off. If, how- 

 ever, the tree has no suitable small branch, it will be 

 enough if nine feet from the ground it is left 

 standing and the upper part lopped off, in order that 

 the new rods which it will have put forth may be safe 



51 



