STATURE OF THE VINE. 



J81 



thought coeval with Archbishop Laud, yet these 

 are no impeachment of the truth of the observation, 

 since it is no uncommon thing for men to see trees 

 running into apparent decay, which their own hands 

 have raised and planted : it consequently is a cir- 

 cumstance most remarkable, relative to the Vine, 

 that it is of such a lasting duration as to survive 

 many ages a 



Mr. Miller, in his Gardener's Dictionary, tells 

 us, that the vineyards in some parts of Italy will 

 hold good above 300 years, accounting those of 

 100 years as young Vines. 



Astonishing as the above account respecting the 

 age of the Vine may appear at first sight, the 

 wonder will, in a great measure, cease, when we 

 compare it with the following passage taken from 

 Mr. Evelyn's Silva, in which that of its bulk will 

 not seem less surprising. 



" The particulars were too long to recount of 

 the old Platanus, set by Agamemnon, mentioned 

 by Theophrastus, the Herculean Oaks, the Laurel 

 near Hippocrene, the Vatican Ilex, and the Vine 

 which was grown to that bulk and wpodiness, as 

 to make a statue of Jupiter, and columns in Juno's 

 temple : at present it is found that the great doors 

 of the cathedral at Ravenna are made of such 

 Vine-tree planks, some of which are twelve feet 

 long, and fifteen inches broad, the whole soil of 

 that country producing Vines of a prodigious 

 growth. 



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