484 
PLIKY's IS^ATTJEAL HISTOET. 
[Book XVIL 
in the stock, and a scutcheon of the bark removed, due care 
being taken that the knife does not go below it. A simihir 
piece of bark from another tree, with a protuberant bud upon 
it, is then inserted in its place, care being taken that the union 
is so exact that there is no room left for a cicatrix to form, and 
the juncture so perfect as to leave no access to either damp or 
air : still, however, it is always the best plan to protect the 
scutcheon by means of a plaster of clay and a band. Those who 
favour the modern fashions pretend that this method has been 
only discovered in recent times ; but the fact is, that we find 
it employed by the ancient Greeks, and dejcribed by Cato,^^ 
who recommends it for the olive and the fig ; and he goes so 
far as to determine the very dimensions even, in accordance 
with his usual exactness. The scutcheon, he says, when taken 
off with the knife should be four^^ fingers in length, and three 
in breadth. It is then fitted to the spot which it is to occupy, 
and anointed with the mixture of his which has been pre- 
viously doscribed.^^ This method, too, he recommends for the 
apple. 
Some persons have adopted another plan with the vine, 
which consists partly of that of grafting by scutcheon, and 
partly by fissure ; they first remove a square piece of bark 
from the stock, and then insert a slip in the place that is thus 
laid bare. I once saw at Thuiise,^^ near Tibur, a tree that had 
been grafted^® upon all these various ways, and loaded with fruit 
of every kind. Upon one branch there were nuts to be seen, 
upon another berries, upon another grapes, upon another 
pears, upon another figs, and upon others pomegranates, and 
3^ "Sciitiila." So called from its resemblance to a " httle shield." 
32 De Ke Eust. 42. ^"^ Cato says, three and a-half. 
3^ Chalk and cow-dang. See c. 24 of this Book. 
35 Perhaps '* TuU{b ; " which would mean, according to Festus, the 
cascades'' or "waterfalls" of Tibur, now Tivoli. 
•^^ Fee says, that if we take the word "grafted" here in the strictest 
sense, Pliny must have seen as great a marvel as any of those mentioned' 
in the "Arabian iS^ights in fact, utter impossibilities. He thinks it 
possible, however, that a kind of mock grafting may have been produced 
in the case, still employed in some parts of Italy, and known as the 
" greffe- Diane." A trunk of an orange tree is split, and slips of numerous" 
trees are than passed into it, which in time throw out their foliage and 
blossoms in various parts of the tree, or at the top ; the consequence of 
which is, that the stock appears to bear several varieties of blossoms at the 
same moment, it is not improbable that Pliny was thus imposed upon. 
