16 THE FOOD OF TREES IS IMBIBED pt.- ii. 



excretion of moisture is prevented, and secretion of 

 moisture takes place, throughout about 6 feet of the 

 cutting. In the course of two or three years the piUar 

 of earth is gradually taken away ; when a head has 

 grown on a trunk 5 or 6 feet from the ground. 



From Pliny's description of the planting the elm 

 in vineyards, and Seneca the Younger's description of 

 planting the olive, I imagine the Spanish to be a lineal 

 descendant of the Eoman method. Yirgil also alludes 

 to this mode of cultivating the olive in the Second 

 Book of the Georgics : — 



Quin et caudicibus sectis (mirabile dictu !) 

 Trnditnr e sicco radix oleagina ligno. 



I have known cuttings of pinuses kept out of doors 

 without heat, to live for two years, and even to make 

 small shoots, without forming a symptom of a root. 

 That these were fed for two years by the absorption 

 of their wood from the earth, and not, as Priestley and 

 Liebig would have it, by the absorption of their foliage 

 from the air, is clear, — because, if cuttings are left 

 without being placed in the earth, they die at once.* 



* All the vineyards of tbe Soutli bave, from time immemorial, 

 been planted and replanted from cuttings, as our gooseberries and 

 currants are. Witbout tbe intervention of new idJ ants generated 

 from dormant seeds, tbe great majority of vines migbt doubtless 

 tbus run tbeir pedigrees tbrougb sap wbicb bas never ceased to 

 circulate up to tbe time and tbe plants of Baccbus. And tbus 

 eacb plant may call itself tbe contemporary creation of tbe jolly 

 god, as eacb olive may of Minerva. Tbis is very mucb at 

 variance vpitb tbe absurd received notion tbat cuttings and 

 scions partake of tbe age and decrepitude of tbe plants from 

 wbicb tbey are taken. 



