448 
i»li]5ty's katueal history 
[Book XVII. 
wliich is naturally rough and friable, we find recommended 
by some authors. Yirgil/^ too, does not condemn for the vine 
a soil which produces fern while a salted earth is thought 
to be much better entrusted with the growth of vegetation than 
any other, from the fact of its being comparatively safe from 
noxious insects breeding there. Declivities, too, are far from 
unproductive, if a person only knows how to dig them pro- 
perly ; and it is not all*^ champaign spots that are lees acces-' 
sible to the sun and wind than is necessary for their benefit. 
"We have already** alluded to the fact, that there are certain 
vines which find nutriment in hoar frosts and fogs. 
In every subject there are certain deep and recondite 
secrets, which it is left to the intelligence of each to penetrate. 
Do we not, for instance, find it the fact, that soils which have 
long offered opportunities for a sound judgment being formed on 
their qualities have become totally altered ? In the vicinity 
of Larissa, in Thessaly, a lake was drained ;*"^ and the conse- 
quence was, that the district became much colder, and the 
olive-trees which had formerly borne fruit now ceased to bear. 
When a channel was cut for the Hebrus, near the town of 
-^nos, the place was sensible of its nearer approach, in finding 
its vines frost-bitten, a thing that had never happened before ; 
in the vicinity, too, of Philippi, the country having been 
drained for cultivation, the nature of the climate became en- 
tirely altered. In the territory of Syracuse, a husbandman, 
who was a stranger to the place, cleared the soil of all the 
stones, and the consequence was, that he lost his crops from 
the accumulation of mud ; so that at last he was obliged to 
carry the stones back again. In Syria again, the plough- 
what similar in nature to marl, and that fhongh unproductive by itself, it 
is beneficial when mixed with vegetable earth. Tufa and marl appear to 
have been often confounded by the ancient writers. 
40 Georg. ii. 189. 
4^ The Pteris aquilina of the modern botanists. 
^2 Marine salt, or suh-hydrochlorate of soda, Fee thinks, is here alluded 
to. It is still used with varied success in some parts of the west of 
France. 
Hardouin says, that he here alludes to the proverbial saying among 
the ancients, " Perflare altissima ventos" — The winds blow only on the 
most elevated ground.'* In B. xiv. cc. 4 and 12. 
^5 ^'Emi'sso/' Fee would appear to think that the lake suddenly made its 
appearance, after an earthquake, and from the context he would appear to 
be right. These accounts are all of them borrowed from Theophrastus. 
