Chap. 47.] 
MEDICAMENTS FOE TEEES. 
533 
salt, only in a more modified degree ; for which, reason it is, 
that fig' trees are sprinkled with them ; as also with rue,^^ to 
keep away worms, and to prevent the roots from rotting. 
What is still more even, it is recommended to throw salt**^ 
water on the roots of vines, if they are too full of humours ; 
and if the fruit falk off*, to sprinkle them with ashes and 
vinegar, or with sandarach if the grapes are rotting.*^ If, 
again, a vine is not productive, it should he sprinkled and 
rubbed with strong vinegar and ashes ; and if the grapes, in- 
stead of ripening, dry and shrivel up, the vine should be lopped 
near the roots, and the wound and fibres drenched with strong 
vinegar and stale urine ; after which, the roots should be 
covered up with mud annealed with these liquids, and the 
ground spaded repeatedly. 
As to the olive, if it gives promise of but little fruit, the 
roots should be bared, and left exposed to the winter cold,^^ a 
mode of treatment for which it is all the better. 
All these operations depend each year upon the state of the 
weather, and require to be sometimes retarded, and at other 
times precipitated. The very element of fire even has its own 
utility, in the case of the reed for instance ; which, after the 
reed-bed has been burnt, will spring up all the thicker and 
more pliable.^^ 
Cato,^^ too, gives receipts for certain medicaments, speci- 
fying the proportions as well ; for the roots of the large trees 
he prescribes an amphora, and for those of the smaller ones, 
an urna, of amurca of olives, mixed with water in equal pro- 
portions, recommending the roots to be cleared, and the 
mixture to be gradually poured upon them. In addition to 
this, in the case of the olive and the fig, he recommends that 
a layer of straw should be first placed around them. In the 
fig, too, more particularly, he says that in spring the roots 
should be well moulded up ; the result of which is, that the 
fruit will not fall off while green, and the tree will be all the 
more productive, and not aff'ected with roughness of the bark. 
^ Without any efficacy, beyond a doubt. 
'^■^ The action of salt upon vegetation is, at the best, very uncertain. 
^ These recipes are worthless, and almost impracticable. 
59 This method is still adopted, but with none of the accessories here 
mentioned by Pliny. 
6^ A dangerous practice, Fe'e remarks, and certainly not to be adopted. 
61 Mitior. «3 De Re Rust. 93. 
