390 
plint's natural histoet. 
[Book XVI. 
and die all of a sudden, being utterly exhausted by the too 
favourable influence of the weather, a thing that happens to 
the vine more particularly. 
(28.) On the other hand, the mulberry becomes aged*^ but 
very slowly, and is never exhausted by its crops. Those trees, 
too, the wood of which is variegated, arrive at old age but 
slowly, — the palm, the maple, and the poplar, for instance. 
(29.) Trees grow old more rapidly when the earth is 
ploughed and loosened about the roots ; forest trees at a later 
period. Speaking in general terms, we may say that care 
employed in the culture of trees seems to promote their fer- 
tility, while increased fertility accelerates old age. Hence it 
is that the carefully tended trees are the first to blossom, and 
the first to bud ; in a word, are the most precocious in every 
respect : but all natural productions which are in any way 
weakened are more susceptible of atmospheric influences. 
CHAP. 52. TREES WHICH BEAK VAEIOTJS PEODTJCTS. CEATiEGUM. 
Many trees bears more than one production, a fact which 
we have already mentioned*^ when speaking of the glandi- 
ferous trees. In the number of these there is the laurel, 
which bears its own peculiar kind of grape, and more parti- 
cularly the barren laurel,^* which bears nothing else ; for 
which reason it is looked upon by some persons as the male 
tree. The filbert, too, bears catkins, which are hard and com- 
pact, but of no use*^ whatever. 
(30.) But it is the box-tree that supplies us with the great- 
est number of products, not only its seed, but a berry also, 
known by the name of cratsegum while on the north, side 
See B. XV. c. 27. The mulberry tree will live for several centuries. 
^'^ Tliis stimulates the sap, and adds to its activity : but the tree grows 
old all the sooner, being the more speedily exhausted. 
*^ In cc. 9 — 14 of the present Book. 
This passage is quite unintelligible ; and it is with good reason that 
Yee questions whether Pliny really understood the author that he copied 
from. 
45 Fee remarks, that Pliny does not seem to know that the catkin is an 
assemblage of flowers, and that without it the tree would be totally barren. 
46 Pliny blunders sadly here, in copying from Theophrastus, B. iii. c. 16. 
He mixes up a description of the box and the Crataegus, or holm-oak, making 
the latter to be a seed of the former : and he then attributes a mistletoe to 
the box, which Theophrastus speaks of as growing on the Crataegus. 
