Chaps. 4-13.

Chap. 4. (6.)—The Eight Kinds of Earth Boasted of by the Gauls and Greeks.

There is another method, which has been invented both in Gaul and Britain, of enriching earth by the agency of itself, being * * * * and that kind known as marl. [A natural mixture of argilla and calcareous stones, or subcarbonate of chalk. Fée remarks, that the ancients were not acquainted with the proper method of applying it. Marl only exercises its fertilizing influence after being reduced to dust by the action of the atmosphere, by absorbing the oxygen of the air, and giving to vegetation the carbonic acid that is necessary for their nourishment.] This soil is looked upon as containing a greater amount of fecundating principles, and acts as a fat in relation to the earth, just as we find glands existing in the body, which are formed by a condensation of the fatty particles into so many kernels. (7.) This mode of proceeding, too, has not been overlooked by the Greeks; indeed, what subject is there that they have not touched upon? They call by the name of leucargillon [“White argilla.” This, Fée thinks, is the calcareous marl, three varieties of which are known, the compact, the schistoid, and the friable.] a white argillaceous earth which is used in the territory of Megara, but only where the soil is of a moist, cold nature.

It is only right that I should employ some degree of care and exactness in treating of this marl, which tends so greatly to enrich the soil of the Gallic provinces and the British islands. There were formerly but two varieties known, but more recently, with the progress of agricultural knowledge, several [At the present day there are only two varieties of marl recognized, the argillaceous and the calcareous; it is to the latter, Fée thinks, that the varieties here mentioned as anciently recognized, belonged.] others have begun to be employed; there being, in fact, the white, the red, the columbine, the argillaceous, the tufaceous, and the sandy marls. It has also one of these two peculiarities, it is either rough or greasy to the touch; the proper mode of testing it being by the hand. Its uses, too, are of a twofold nature—it is employed for the production of the cereals only, or else for the enrichment of pasture land as well. The tufaceous [The Marga terrea of Linnæus. It abounds in various parts of Europe.] kind is nutrimental to grain, and so is the white; if found in the vicinity of springs, it is fertile to an immeasurable extent; but if it is rough to the touch, when laid upon the land in too large a quantity, it is apt to burn up the soil. The next kind is the red marl, known as acaunumarga, [From the Greek, meaning “not bitter marl.”] consisting of stones mingled with a thin sandy earth. These stones are broken upon the land itself, and it is with considerable difficulty during the earlier years that the stalk of the corn is cut, in consequence of the presence of these stones; however, as it is remarkably light, it only costs for carriage one-half of the outlay required in using the other varieties. It is laid but very thinly on the surface, and it is generally thought that it is mixed with salt. Both of these varieties, when once laid on the land, will fertilize it for fifty [Marl does not begin to fertilize till several years after it has been laid down; hence, it is generally recommended to marl the land a little at a time, and often. If the ground is fully marled, it requires to be marled afresh in about eight or ten years, and not fifty, as Pliny says.] years, whether for grain or for hay.

(8.) Of the marls that are found to be of an unctuous nature, the best is the white. There are several varieties of it: the most pungent and biting being the one already mentioned. Another kind, is the white chalk that is used for cleaning [“Argentaria.” Used, probably, in the same way as whitening in modern times. See B. xxxv. c. 58.] silver; it is taken from a considerable depth in the ground, the pits being sunk, in most instances, as much as one hundred feet. These pits are narrow at the mouth, but the shafts enlarge very considerably in the interior, as is the case in mines; it is in Britain more particularly that this chalk is employed. The good effects of it are found to last full eighty years; and there is no instance known of an agriculturist laying it twice on the same land during his life. [An exaggeration, no doubt.] A third variety of white marl is known as glisomarga; [Probably meaning “smooth marl;” a variety, Fée thinks, of argillaceous marl, and, perhaps, the potter’s argillaceous marl, or potter’s argil. He suggests, also that it may have possibly been the Marga fullonum saponacea lamellosa of Valerius; in other words, fullers’ earth.] it consists of fullers’ chalk [Creta fullonia.] mixed with an unctuous earth, and is better for promoting the growth of hay than grain; so much so, in fact, that between harvest and the ensuing seed-time there is cut a most abundant crop of grass. While the corn is growing, however, it will allow no other plant to grow there. Its effects will last so long as thirty years; but if laid too thickly on the ground, it is apt to choke up the soil, just as if it had been covered with Signine [See B. xxxv. c. 46.] cement. The Gauls give to the columbine marl in their language the name of eglecopala; [This would rather seem to be a name borrowed from the Greek, αἰγλήεις, “shining,” and πελιὸς, “white.” Notwithstanding the resemblance, however, it is just possible that it may have been derived from the Gallic. Fée queries whether this is the schistoid calcareous marl, or the schistoid argillaceous marl, the laminæ of which divide with great facility, and the varieties of which display many colours.] it is taken up in solid blocks like stone, after which it is so loosened by the action of the sun and frost, as to split into laminæ of extreme thinness; this kind is equally beneficial for grass and grain. The sandy [A variety of the terreous marl.] marl is employed if there is no other at hand, and on moist slimy soils, even when other kinds can be procured.

The Ubii are the only people that we know of, who, having an extremely fertile soil to cultivate, employ methods of enriching it; wherever the land may happen to be, they dig to a depth of three feet, and, taking up the earth, cover the soil with it in other places a foot in thickness; this method, however, to be beneficial, requires to be renewed at the end of every ten years. The Ædui and the Pictones have rendered their lands remarkably fertile by the aid of limestone, which is also found to be particularly beneficial to the olive and the vine. [It has the effect of augmenting their fruitfulness, and ameliorating the quality of the fruit. Lime is still considered an excellent improver for strong, humid soils.] Every marl, however, requires to be laid on the land immediately after ploughing, in order that the soil may at once imbibe its properties; while at the same time, it requires a little manure as well, as it is apt, at first, to be of too acrid a nature, at least where it is not pasture land that it is laid upon; in addition to which, by its very freshness it may possibly injure the soil, whatever the nature of it may be; so much so, indeed, that the land is never fertile the first year after it has been employed. It is a matter of consideration also for what kind of soil the marl is required; if the soil is moist, a dry marl is best suited for it; and if dry, a rich unctuous marl. If, on the other hand, the land is of a medium quality, chalk or columbine [From this passage, Fée thinks that the Columbine marl must have been of the white, slightly sparkling kind.] marl is the best suited for it.

Chap. 5. (9.)—The Employment of Ashes.

The agriculturists of the parts of Italy beyond the river Padus, are such admirers of ashes [Though ashes fertilize the ground, more particularly when of an argillaceous nature, they are not so extensively used now as in ancient times. Pliny alludes here more particularly to wood and dunghill ashes.] for this purpose, that they even prefer it as a manure to the dung of beasts of burden; indeed, they are in the habit of burning dung for this purpose, on account of its superior lightness. They do not, however, use them indiscriminately upon the same soil, nor do they employ ashes for promoting the growth of shrubs, nor, in fact, of some of the cereals, as we shall have occasion [This, however, he omits to do.] to mention hereafter. There are some persons who are of opinion also that dust [He alludes, probably, to Theophrastus, De Causis, B. iii. c. 22.] imparts nutriment to grapes, and cover them with it while they are growing, taking care to throw it also upon the roots of the vines and other trees. It is well known that this is done in the province of Gallia Narbonensis, and it is a fact even better ascertained that the grape ripens all the sooner for it; indeed, the dust there contributes more to its ripeness than the heat of the sun.

Chap. 6.—Manure.

There are various kinds of manure, the use of which is of very ancient date. In the times of Homer [Odyssey xxiv. 225.] even, the aged king is represented as thus enriching the land by the labour of his own hands. Tradition reports that King Augeas was the first in Greece to make use of it, and that Hercules introduced the practice into Italy; which country has, however, immortalized the name of its king, Stercutus, [From “stercus,” “dung.” A fabulous personage, most probably.] the son of Faunus, as claiming the honour of this invention. M. Varro [De Re Rust. i. 38.] assigns the first rank for excellence to the dung of thrushes kept in aviaries, and lauds it as being not only good for land, but excellent food for oxen and swine as well; indeed, he goes so far as to assert that there is no food that they will grow fat upon more speedily. We really have some reason to augur well of the manners of the present day, if it is true that in the days of our ancestors there were aviaries of such vast extent as to be able to furnish manure for the fields.

Columella [De Re Rust. ii. 15.] gives the second rank to pigeon manure, [Mixed with other manures, it is employed at the present day in Normandy.] and the next to that of the poultry-yard; but he condemns that of the aquatic birds. Some authors, again, are agreed in regarding the residue of the human food [This manure is still extensively employed in Flanders, Switzerland, and the vicinity of Paris. In the north of England it is mixed with ashes, and laid on the fields. There was an old prejudice, that vegetation grown with it has a fetid odour, but it has for some time been looked upon as exploded.] as the very best of all manures; while others would only employ the superfluous portion of our drink, [Or urine. In the vicinity of Paris, a manure is employed called urate, of which urine forms the basis.] mixing with it the hair that is to be found in the curriers’ workshops. Some, however, are for employing this liquid by itself, though they would mix water with it once more, and in larger quantities even than when originally mixed with the wine at our repasts; there being a double share of noxious qualities to correct, not only those originally belonging to the wine, [Fée seems to think that this passage means that the bad smell of urine is imparted to it by the wine that is drunk. It is difficult to say what could have been the noxious qualities imparted by wine to urine as a manure, and Pliny probably would have been somewhat at a loss to explain his meaning.] but those imparted to it by the human body as well. Such are the various methods by which we vie with each other in imparting nutriment to the earth even.

Next to the manures above mentioned, the dung of swine is highly esteemed, Columella being the only writer that condemns it. Some, again, speak highly of the dung of all quadrupeds that have been fed on cytisus, while there are others who prefer that of pigeons. Next to these is the dung of goats, and then of sheep; after which comes that of oxen, and, last of all, of the beasts of burden. Such were the distinctions that were established between the various manures among the ancients, such the precepts that they have left us, and these I have here set forth as being not the mere subtle inventions of genius, but because their utility has been proved in the course of a long series of years. In some of the provinces, too, which abound more particularly in cattle, by reason of their prolific soil, we have seen the manure passed through a sieve like so much flour, and perfectly devoid, through lapse of time, [In lapse of time, if exposed to the air, it is reduced to the state of humus or mould.] of all bad smell or repulsive look, being changed in its appearance to something rather agreeable than otherwise. In more recent times it has been found that the olive thrives more particularly in soil that has been manured with the ashes [Consisting of lime mixed with vegetable ashes.] of the lime-kiln. To the ancient rules Varro [De Re Rust. i. 38.] has added, that corn land should be manured with horse-dung, that being the lightest manure of all, while meadow land, he says, thrives better with a manure of a more heavy nature, and supplied by beasts that have been fed upon barley; this last tending more particularly to the better growth of grass. [“Herbas.” This would appear to mean grass only here; though Fée seems to think that it means various kinds of herbs.] Some persons, indeed, prefer the dung of the beasts of burden to that of oxen even, the manure of the sheep to that of the goat, and the manure of the ass to all others, the reason being that that animal masticates the most slowly of them all. Experience, however, has pronounced against these dicta of Varro and Columella; but it is universally agreed by all writers that there is nothing more beneficial than to turn [This method is sometimes adopted in England with buckwheat, trefoil, peas, and other leguminous plants; and in the south of France lupines are still extensively used in the same manner, after the usage of the ancient Romans here described. The French also employ, but more rarely, for the same purpose, the large turnip, vetches, peas, trefoil, Windsor beans, sanfoin, lucerne, &c.; but it is found a very expensive practice.] up a crop of lupines, before they have podded, with either the plough or the fork, or else to cut them and bury them in heaps at the roots of trees and vines. It is thought, also, that in places where no cattle are kept, it is advantageous to manure the earth with stubble or even fern. “You can make manure,” Cato [De Re Rust. 37.] says, “of litter, or else of lupines, straw, beanstalks, or the leaves of the holm-oak and quercus. Pull up the wallwort from among the crops of corn, as also the hemlock that grows there, together with the thick grass and sedge that you find growing about the willow-plots; of all this, mixed with rotten leaves, [“Frondam putidam.” Fée thinks that this expression is used in reference to the “ebulum,” dane-wort, wall-wort, or dwarf-elder, previously mentioned.] you may make a litter for sheep and oxen. If a vine should happen to be but poor and meagre, prune [“Concidito.” Sillig adopts the reading “comburito,” “burn the shoots, and dig in, &c.” But in the original the word is “concidito.”] the shoots of it, and plough them in round about it.” The same author says, also, [De Re Rust. 30.] “When you are going to sow corn in a field, fold your sheep [This is still extensively practised in England and France, and other countries. The azote, even, that exhales from the bodies of the animals, is supposed to have a fertilizing influence, to say nothing of the dung, grease of the body, and urine.] there first.”

Chap. 7.—Crops Which Tend to Improve the Land: Crops Which Exhaust It.

Cato [De Re Rust. 37.] says, also, that there are some crops which tend to nourish the earth: thus, for instance, corn land is manured by the lupine, the bean, and the vetch; while, on the other hand, the chick-pea exercises a contrary influence, both because it is pulled up by the roots and is of a salt nature; the same is the case, too, with barley, fenugreek, and fitches, all of which have a tendency to burn up [“Exsugunt,” “suck up,” or “drain,” is one reading in Cato; and it is not improbable that it is the correct one.] corn land, as, in fact, do all those plants which are pulled up by the roots. Take care, too, not to plant stone-fruits on corn land. Virgil [Georg. i. 77, 78: “Urit enim lini campum seges, urit avenæ, Urunt Lethæo perfusa papavera somno.”] is of opinion, also, that corn land is scorched by flax, oats, and poppies.

Chap. 8.—The Proper Mode of Using Manure.

It is recommended, [Fée is of opinion, that, with reference to this branch of agriculture, the ancients displayed more skill and intelligence than the moderns.] also, that the dung-heap should be kept in the open air, in a spot deep sunk and well adapted to receive the moisture: it should be covered, too, with straw, that it may not dry up with the sun, care being taken to drive a stake of robur into the ground, to prevent serpents from breeding [This absurdity is copied from Varro and Columella.] there. It is of the greatest consequence that the manure should be laid upon the land while [I. e. in the early part of spring. In modern times, the period for manuring varies, according to the usage of different localities, being practised in all the four seasons of the year, according to the crops, weather, and climate.] the west winds prevail, and during a dry moon. Most persons, however, misunderstand this precept, and think this should be done when the west winds are just beginning to blow, and in the month of February only; it being really the fact that most crops require manuring in other months as well. At whatever period, however, it may be thought proper to manure the land, the greatest care should be taken that the wind is blowing due west at the time, and that the moon is on the wane, and quite dry. Such precautions as these will increase in a most surprising degree the fertilizing effects of manure.

Chap. 9. (10.)—The Modes in Which Trees Bear.

Having now treated at sufficient length of the requisite conditions of the weather and the soil, we shall proceed to speak of those trees which are the result of the care and inventive skill of man. Indeed, the varieties of them are hardly less numerous than of those which are produced by Nature, [See B. xvi. c..] so abundantly have we testified our gratitude in return for her numerous bounties. For these trees, we find, are reared either from seed, or else by transplanting, by layers, by slips torn from the stock, by cuttings, by grafting, or by cutting into the trunk of the tree. But as to the story that the leaves of the palm are planted by the Babylonians, and so give birth [The palm is grown in Africa from shoots thrown out from the axillæ of the leaves; and it is in this circumstance, Fée thinks, that the story told by Trogus must have originated. Some of the ferns throw out adventitious buds from the summit of the leaf, and the orange tree and some others occasionally have them at the base of the leaf.] to a tree, I am really surprised that Trogus should have ever believed it. Some of the trees are reproduced by several of the methods above enumerated, others, again, by all of them.

Chap. 10.—Plants Which Are Propagated by Seed.

It is Nature herself that has taught us most of these methods, and more particularly that of sowing seed, as it was very soon evident how the seed on falling to the ground revived again in germination. Indeed, there are some trees that are capable of being propagated in no other way, the chesnut [Virgil says, Georgics ii. 14: “Pars autem posito surgunt de semine; ut altæ Castaneæ, nemorumque Jovi quæ maxime frondet.”] and the walnut, for instance; with the sole exception, of course, of such as are employed for coppice wood. By this method, too, as well as the others, some trees are propagated, though from a seed of a different nature, such, for instance, as the vine, the apple, and the pear; [This method of reproduction is seldom or never employed; plants or cuttings only being used for the purpose.] the seed being in all these cases in the shape of a pip, and not the fruit itself, as in that of the chesnut and the walnut. The medlar, too, can also be propagated by the agency of seed. All trees, however, that are grown by this method are very slow in coming to maturity, [Besides which, it is doubtful if they will reproduce the variety, the seed of which was originally sown.] degenerate [In some cases, they are more particularly liable to disease—the apple, for instance.] very rapidly, and must often be renewed by grafting: indeed, the chesnut even sometimes requires to be grafted.

Chap. 11.—Trees Which Never Degenerate.

On the other hand, there are some trees which have the property of never degenerating, in whatever manner they are reproduced, the cypress, palm, and laurel, [Because the mode of cultivation adopted has little or no influence upon them. The palm, however, to bear good fruit, requires the careful attention of man. It is not capable of being grafted.] for instance: for we find that the laurel is capable of being propagated in several ways. We have already made mention [In B. xv. c.. The laurel may be grown from cuttings or shoots, and from seed.] of the various kinds of laurel; those known as the Augustan, the baccalis, and the tinus [Known as the Laurus tinus, or Viburnum tinus of Linnæus.] are all reproduced in a similar manner. The berries are gathered in the month of January, after they have been dried by the north-east winds which then prevail; they are then kept [This is not done at the present day, as it is found that the oil which they contain turns rancid, and prevents germination.] separate and exposed to the action of the air, being liable to ferment if left in a heap. After this, they are first seasoned with smoke, and then steeped in urine, preparatory to sowing. [These methods of preparation are no longer employed.] Some persons put them in baskets of osier, and tread them down with the feet in running water, until the outer skin is removed, as it is found that the moisture [It is for this reason, as already stated, that they should be sown at once.] which they contain is detrimental to them, and prevents them from germinating. A trench is then dug, about a palm in depth, and somewhere about twenty of the berries are then put into it, being laid in a heap: this is usually done in the month of March. These kinds of laurel admit of being propagated from layers also; but the triumphal [See B. xv. c.. He there calls it “sterilis,” “barren.”] laurel can be reproduced from cuttings only.

All the varieties of the myrtle [See B. xv. c.. The myrtle reproduces itself in its native countries with great facility, but in such case the flowers are only single. Where a double flower is required, it is grown from layers.] are produced in Campania from the berry only, but at Rome from layers. Democritus, however, says that the Tarentine myrtle may be re-produced another way. [No better, Fée says, than the ordinary method of making a myrtle hedge.] They take the largest berries and pound them lightly so as not to crush the pips: with the paste that is thus made a rope is covered, and put lengthwise in the ground; the result of which is that a hedge is formed as thick as a wall, with plenty of slips for transplanting. In the same way, too, they plant brambles to make a hedge, by first covering a rope of rushes with a paste made of bramble-berries. In case of necessity, it is possible at the end of three years to transplant the suckers of the laurel and the myrtle that have been thus re-produced.

With reference to the plants that are propagated from seed, Mago treats at considerable length of the nut-trees—he says that the almond [The almond requires a dry, light earth, and a southern aspect.] should be sown in a soft argillaceous earth, upon a spot that looks towards the south—that it thrives also in a hard, warm soil, but that in a soil which is either unctuous or moist, it is sure to die, or else to bear no fruit. He recommends also for sowing those more particularly which are of a curved shape like a sickle, and the produce of a young tree, and he says that they should be steeped for three days in diluted manure, or else the day before they are sown in honey and water. [These precautions are no longer observed at the present day.] He says, also, that they should be put in the ground with the point downwards, and the sharp edge towards the north-east; and that they should be sown in threes and placed triangularly, at the distance of a palm from each other, care being taken to water them for ten days, until such time as they have germinated.

Walnuts when sown are placed lengthwise, [This precaution, too, is no longer observed.] lying upon the sides where the shells are joined; and pine nuts are mostly put, in sevens, into perforated pots, or else sown in the same way as the berries are in the laurels which are re-produced by seed. The citron [The citron is produced, at the present day, from either the pips, plants, or cuttings.] is propagated from pips as well as layers, and the sorb from seed, by sucker, or by slip: the citron, however, requires a warm site, the sorb a cold and moist one.

Chap. 12.—Propagation by Suckers.

Nature, too, [This passage is borrowed almost verbatim from Virgil, Georgics ii. 50, et seq.] has taught us the art of forming nurseries; when from the roots of many of the trees we see shooting up a dense forest of suckers, an offspring that is destined to be killed by the mother that has borne them. For by the shade of the tree these suckers are indiscriminately stifled, as we often see the case in the laurel, the pomegranate, the plane, the cherry, and the plum. There are some few trees, the elm and the palm for instance, in which the branches spare the suckers; however, they never make their appearance in any of the trees except those in which the roots, from their fondness for the sun and rain, keep close, as they range, to the surface of the ground. It is usual not to place all these suckers at once in the ground upon the spot which they are finally to occupy, but first to entrust them to the nursery, and to allow them to grow in seed-plots, after which they are finally transplanted. This transplanting softens down, in a most remarkable manner, those trees even which grow wild; whether it is that trees, like men, are naturally fond of novelty and change of scene, or that, on leaving the spots of their original growth, or to which they have been transplanted, they lay aside their bad qualities and become tame, like the wild animals, the moment they are separated from the parent stock.

Chap. 13.—Propagation by Slips and Cuttings.

Nature has also discovered another method, which is very similar to the last—for slips torn away from the tree will live. In adopting this plan, care should be taken to pull out the haunch [“Perna.” This method of reproduction is still adopted, but it is not to be recommended, as the young tree, before it throws out a root, is liable to be overthrown by high winds. Virgil mentions it, Georg. ii. 23.] of the slip where it adheres to the stock, and so remove with it a portion of the fibrous body of the parent tree. It is in this way that the pomegranate, the hazel, the apple, the sorb, the medlar, the ash, the fig, and more particularly the vine, are propagated. The quince, however, if planted in this way will degenerate, [Palladius only says that the growth of the quince in such case is very slow.] and it has been consequently found a better plan to cut slips and plant them: a method which was at first adopted for making hedges, with the elder, the quince, and the bramble, but came afterwards to be applied to cultivated trees, such as the poplar, the alder, and the willow, which last will grow if even the slip is planted upside down. [This experiment has been tried for curiosity’s sake, and has succeeded; the roots become dry, lose their fibres, and then develop buds, from which branches issue; while the buds of the summit become changed into roots.] In the case of cuttings, they are planted at once in the spot which it is intended they should occupy: but before we pass on to the other methods of propagation, it seems as well to mention the care that should be expended upon making seed-plots. [“Seminarii:” “nurseries,” as they are more commonly called.]