Chap. S3.] 
BEED-BEDS. 
493 
osier willows will supply osiers^^ sufficient for twenty-five jugera 
of vines. It is for a similar purpose that the white poplar^^ 
is grown ; the trenches being two feet deep and the cutting a 
foot and a half in length. It is left to dry for a couple of days 
before it is planted, and a space is left between the plants a foot 
and a palm in width, after which they are covered with earth 
to the depth of a couple of cubits. 
CHAP. 33. EEED-BEDS. 
The reed^^ requires a soil still moister even than that em- 
ployed for the willow. It is planted by placing the bulb of 
the root, that part which some people call the *'eye,"®^ in a 
trench three quarters of a foot in depth, at intervals of two 
feet and a half. A reed-bed will renew itself spontaneously 
after the old one has been rooted up, a circumstance which it 
has been found more beneficial to take advantage of than 
merely to thin them, as was formerly the practice ; the roots 
being in the habit of creeping and becoming interlaced, a 
thing that ends eventually in the destruction of the bed. The 
proper time for planting reeds is before the eyes begin to swell, 
or, in other v/ords, before the calends of March. ^"^ The reed 
continues to increase until the winter solstice, but ceases to do 
so when it begins to grow hard, a sign that it is fit for cutting. 
It is generally thought, too, that the reed requires to be 
trenched round as often as the vine. 
The reed also is planted in a horizontal position,®^ and then 
covered with earth to a very great depth ; by this method as 
many plants spring up as there are eyes. It is propagated, also, 
by planting out in trenches a foot in depth, care being taken to 
cover up two of the eyes, while a third knot is left just on a 
level Avith the ground ; the head, too, is bent downwards, that 
it may not become charged with dew. The reed is usually cut 
v/hen the moon is on the wane.^^ When required for the 
vineyard, it is better dried for a year than used in a green 
state. 
For making baskets and bindings. 
The Populus canescens of Willdenow. 
^5 The Arundo donax of Linn sens. This account is mostly from Colu- 
mella, B. iv. c. 32. 6S B. xvi. c. 67. First of March. 
This method is condemned by Columella, De Arbor, 29, as tlie pro- 
duce is poor, meagre, and weak. It is but little practised at the present 
day, A mere superstition, of course. 
