504 
pliny's natueal history. 
[Book XVII. 
then at that period they are for cutting it down so completely 
as to leave three buds only. Others, again, cut down the vine 
within a year even after it has been transplanted, but then 
they take care to let the stem increase every year by three or 
four joints, bringing it on a level with the cross-piece by the 
fourth. These two methods, however, both of them, retard the 
fruit and render the tree stunted and knotty, as we see the 
case in all dwarf trees. The best plan is to make the parent m 
stem as robust and vigorous as possible, and then the wood 1 
will be sure to be strong and hardy. It is far from safe, too, 
to take slips from a cicatrized stem ; such a practice is erro- 
neous, and only the result of ignorance. All cuttings of this ' 
nature are sure to be the offspring of acts of violence, and not 
in reality of the tree itself. The vine, while growing, should 
be possessed of all its natural strength; and we find that 
when left entirely to itself, it will throw out wood in every 
part ; for there is no portion of it that IN'ature does not act 
upon. When the stem has grown sufficiently strong for the 
purpose, it should at once be trained to the cross-piece ; if, how- 
ever, it is but weak, it should be cut down so as to lie below 
the hospitable shelter of the cross-piece. Indeed, it is the 
strength of the stem, and not its age, that ought to decide the 
matter. It is not advisable^* to attempt to train a vine before 
the stem has attained the thickness of the thumb ; but in the ■ 
year after it has reached the frame, one or two stock-branches 
should be preserved, according to the strength developed by 
the parent tree. The same, too, must be done the succeeding 
year, if the weakness of the stem demands it ; and in the next, 
two more should be added. Still, however, there should never 
be more than four branches allowed to grow ; in one word, 
there must be no indulgence shown, and every exuberance in 
the tree must in all cases be most carefully repressed ; for 
such is the nature of the vine, that it is more eager to bear 
than it is to live. It should be remembered, too, that all that i 
is subtracted from the wood is so much added to the fruit. 
The vine, in fact, would much rather produce shoots and ten- 
drils than fruit, because its fruit, after all, is but a transitory 
possession : hence it is that it luxuriates to its own undoing, 
and instead of really gaining ground, exhausts itself. 
2* This applies solely, Fee observes, to the vine trained on the trail or 
cross-piece. 
'^^ This certainly appears to be a non seqmtur, as applied to the vine. 
