Chaps. 38-47.

Chap. 38. (25.)—Prodigies Connected with Trees.

Among the maladies which affect the various trees, we may find room for portentous prodigies also. For we find some trees that have never had a leaf upon them; a vine and a pomegranate bearing [This, as Fée remarks, is not by any means impossible, nor, indeed, are any other of the cases mentioned in this paragraph, owing to some accidental circumstance.] fruit adhering to the trunk, and not upon the shoots or branches; a vine, too, that bore grapes but had no leaves; and olives that have lost their leaves while the fruit remained upon the tree. There are some marvels also connected with trees that are owing to accident; an olive that was completely burnt, has been known to revive, and in Bœotia, some fig-trees that had been quite eaten away by locusts budded afresh. [See B. xxix. c. 29.] Trees, too, sometimes change their colour, and turn from black to white; this, however, must not always be looked upon as portentous, and more particularly in the case of those which are grown from seed; the white poplar, too, often becomes black. Some persons are of opinion also that the service-tree, if transplanted to a warmer locality, will become barren. But it is a prodigy, no doubt, when sweet fruits become sour, or sour fruits sweet; and when the wild fig becomes changed into the cultivated one, or vice versâ. It is sadly portentous, [These stories can, of course, be only regarded as fabulous.] too, when the tree becomes deteriorated by the change, the cultivated olive changing into the wild, and the white grape or fig becoming black: such was the case, also, when upon the arrival of Xerxes there, a plane-tree at Laodicea was transformed into an olive. In such narratives as these, the book written in Greek by Aristander abounds, not to enter any further on so extended a subject; and we have in Latin the Commentaries of C. Epidius, in which we find it stated that trees have even been known to speak. In the territory of Cumæ, a tree, and a very ominous presage it was, sank into the earth shortly before the civil wars of Pompeius Magnus began, leaving only a few of the branches protruding from the ground. The Sibylline Books were accordingly consulted, and it was found that a war of extermination was impending, which would be attended with greater carnage the nearer it should approach the city of Rome.

Another kind of prodigy, too, is the springing up of a tree in some extraordinary and unusual place, the head of a statue, for instance, or an altar, or upon another tree even. [This may easily be accounted for, by the seed accidentally lodging in a crevice of the tree.] A fig-tree shot forth from a laurel at Cyzicus, just before the siege of that city; and so in like manner, at Tralles, a palm issued from the pedestal of the statue of the Dictator Cæsar, at the period of his civil wars. So, too, at Rome, in the Capitol there, in the time of the wars against Perseus, a palm-tree grew from the head of the statue of Jupiter, a presage of impending victory and triumphs. This palm, however, having been destroyed by a tempest, a fig-tree sprang up in the very same place, at the period of the lustration made by the censors M. Messala and C. Cassius, [A.U.C. 600.] a time at which, according to Piso, an author of high authority, all sense of shame had been utterly banished. Above all the prodigies, however, that have ever been heard of, we ought to place the one that was seen in our own time, at the period of the fall of the Emperor Nero, in the territory of Marrucinum; a plantation of olives, belonging to Vectius Marcellus, one of the principal members of the Equestrian order, bodily crossed the public highway, while the fields that lay on the opposite side of the road passed over to supply the place which had been thus vacated by the olive-yard. [An exaggerated account merely of a land-slip.]

Chap. 39. (26.)—Treatment of the Diseases of Trees.

Having set forth the various maladies by which trees are attacked, it seems only proper to mention the most appropriate remedies as well. Some of these remedies may be applied to all kinds of trees in common, while others, again, are peculiar to some only. The methods that are common to them all, are, baring the roots, or moulding them up, thus admitting the air or keeping it away, as the case may be; giving them water, or depriving them of it, refreshing them with the nutritious juices of manure, and lightening them of their burdens by pruning. The operation, too, of bleeding, [See c. of this Book.] as it were, is performed upon them by withdrawing their juices, and the bark is scraped all round [See c. of this Book.] to improve them. In the vine, the stock branches are sometimes lengthened out, and at other times repressed; the buds too are smoothed, and in a measure polished up, in case the cold weather has made them rough and scaly. These remedies are better suited to some kinds of trees and less so to others: thus the cypress, for instance, has a dislike to water, and manifests an aversion to manure, spading round it, pruning, and, indeed, remedial operations of every kind; nay, what is more, it is killed by irrigation, while, on the other hand, the vine and the pomegranate receive their principal nutriment from it. In the fig, again, the tree is nourished by watering, while the very same thing will make the fruit pine and die: the almond, too, if the ground is spaded about it, will lose its blossom. In the same way, too, there must be no digging about the roots of trees when newly grafted, or indeed until such time as they are sufficiently strong to bear. Many trees require that all superfluous burdens should be pruned away from them, just as we ourselves cut the nails and hair. Old trees are often cut down to the ground, and then shoot up again from one of the suckers; this, however, is not the case with all of them, but only those, the nature of which, as we have already stated, [In B. xvi. cc.,,,, and.] will admit of it.

Chap. 40.—Methods of Irrigation.

Watering is good for trees during the heats of summer, but injurious in winter; the effects of it are of a varied nature in autumn, and depend upon the peculiar nature of the soil. Thus, in Spain for instance, the vintager gathers the grapes while the ground beneath is under water; on the other hand, in most parts of the world, it is absolutely necessary to carry off the autumn rains by draining. It is about the rising of the Dog-star that irrigation is so particularly beneficial; but even then it ought not to be in excess, as the roots are apt to become inebriated, and to receive injury therefrom. Care should be taken, too, to proportion it to the age of the tree, young trees being not so thirsty as older ones; those too which require the most water, are the ones that have been the most used to it. On the other hand, plants which grow in a dry soil, require no more moisture than is absolutely necessary to their existence.

Chap. 41.—Remarkable Facts Connected with Irrigation.

In the Fabian district, which belongs to the territory of Sulmo [This was the native place of Ovid, who alludes to its cold streams, Tristia, B. iv. El. x. ll. 3, 4:— “Sulmo mihi patria est, gelidis uberrimus undis, Millia qui novies distat ab urbe decem.” Irrigation of the vine is still practised in the east, in Italy, and in Spain; but it does not tend to improve the quality of the wine.] in Italy, where they are in the habit, also, of irrigating the fields, the natural harshness of the wines makes it necessary to water the vineyards; it is a very singular thing, too, that the water there kills all the weeds, while at the same time it nourishes the corn, thus acting in place of the weeding-hook. In the same district, too, at the winter solstice, and more particularly when the snow is on the ground or frosts prevail, they irrigate the land, a process which they call “warming” the soil. This peculiarity, however, exists in the water of one river [The Sagrus, now the Sangro.] only, the cold of which in summer is almost insupportable.

Chap. 42. (27.)—Incisions Made in Trees.

The proper remedies for charcoal-blight and mildew [“Uredo rubigo” and “uredo caries.”] will be pointed out in the succeeding Book. [Cc. and 70.] In the meantime, however, we may here observe that among the remedies may be placed that by scarification. [Still practised upon the cherry-tree.] When the bark becomes meagre and impoverished by disease, it is apt to shrink, and so compress the vital parts of the tree to an excessive degree: upon which, by means of a sharp pruning knife held with both hands, incisions are made perpendicularly down the tree, and a sort of looseness, as it were, imparted to the skin. It is a proof that the method has been adopted with success, when the fissures so made remain open and become filled with wood of the trunk growing between the lips.

Chap. 43.—Other Remedies for the Diseases of Trees.

The medical treatment of trees in a great degree resembles that of man, seeing that in certain cases the bones of them both are perforated even. [He alludes to the medical operation for the removal of carious bones, described by Celsus, B. viii. c. 3.] The bitter almond will become sweet, if, after spading round the trunk and cleaning it, the lowermost part of it is pierced all round, so that the humours may have a passage for escape and ensure being removed. In the elm, too, the superfluous juices are drawn off, by piercing the tree above ground to the pith when it is old, or when it is found to suffer from an excess of nutriment. So, too, when the bark of the fig is turgid and swollen, the confined juices are discharged by means of light incisions made in a slanting direction; by the adoption of which method the fruit is prevented from falling off. When fruit-trees bud but bear no fruit, a fissure is made in the root, and a stone inserted; the result of which is, that they become productive. [This is still done by some persons; but it can be productive of no beneficial result.] The same is done also with the almond, a wedge of robur being employed for the purpose. For the pear and the service tree a wedge of torch-wood is used, and then covered over with ashes and earth. It is even found of use, too, to make circular incisions around the roots of the vine and fig, when the vegetation is too luxuriant, and then to throw ashes over the roots. A late crop of figs is ensured, if the first fruit is taken off when green and little larger than a bean; for it is immediately succeeded by fresh, which ripens at a later period than usual. If the tops of each branch are removed from the fig, just as it is beginning to put forth leaves, its strength and productiveness are greatly increased. As to caprification, the effect of that is to ripen the fruit.

Chap. 44.—Caprification, and Particulars Connected with the Fig.

It is beyond all doubt that in caprification the green fruit gives birth to a kind of gnat; [See B. xv. c.: the Cynips psenes of Linn. It penetrates the fig at the base, and deposits an egg in each seed, which is ultimately eaten by the larva; hence the supposed transformation.] for when they have taken flight, there are no seeds to be found within the fruit: from this it would appear that the seeds have been transformed into these gnats. Indeed, these insects are so eager to take their flight, that they mostly leave behind them either a leg or a part of a wing on their departure. There is another species of gnat, [A kind of wasp, probably.] too, that grows in the fig, which in its indolence and malignity strongly resembles the drone of the bee-hive, and shows itself a deadly enemy to the one that is of real utility; it is called centrina, and in killing the others it meets its own death.

Moths, too, attack the seeds of the fig: the best plan of getting rid of them, is to bury a slip of mastich, [A puerility borrowed from Columella, B. v. c. 10.] turned upside down, in the same trench. The fig, too, is rendered extremely productive [From Columella, B. v. c. 10.] by soaking red earth in amurca, and laying it, with some manure, upon the roots of the tree, just as it is beginning to throw out leaves. Among the wild figs, the black ones, and those which grow in rocky places, are the most esteemed, from the fact of the fruit containing the most seed. Caprification takes place most advantageously just after rain.

Chap. 45.—Errors That May Be Committed in Pruning.

But, before everything, especial care should be taken that intended remedies are not productive of ill results; as these may arise from either remedial measures being applied in excess or at unseasonable times. Clearing away the branches is of the greatest benefit to trees, but to slaughter [Trucidatio.] them this way every year, is productive of the very worst results. The vine is the only tree that requires lopping every year, the myrtle, the pomegranate, and olive every other; the reason being that these trees shoot with great rapidity. The other trees are lopped less frequently, and none of them in autumn; the trunk even is never scraped, [For the removal of moss and lichens, which obstruct evaporation, and collect moisture to an inconvenient degree, besides harbouring insects.] except in spring. In pruning a tree, all that is removed beyond what is absolutely necessary, is so much withdrawn from its vitality.

Chap. 46.—The Proper Mode of Manuring Trees.

The same precautions, too, are to be regarded in manuring. Though manure is grateful to the tree, still it is necessary to be careful not to apply it while the sun is hot, or while it is too new, or more stimulating than is absolutely necessary. The dung of swine will burn [Agriculturists, Fée says, are not agreed upon this question.] up the vine, if used at shorter intervals than those of five years; unless, indeed, it is mixed with water. The same is the case, too, with the refuse of the currier’s workshop, unless it is well diluted with water: manure will scorch also, if laid on land too plentifully. It is generally considered the proper proportion, to use three modii to every ten feet square; this, however, the nature of the soil must decide.

Chap. 47.—Medicaments for Trees.

Wounds and incisions of trees are treated also with pigeon dung and swine manure. If pomegranates are acid, the roots of the tree are cleared, and swine’s dung is applied to them: the result is, that in the first year the fruit will have a vinous flavour, but in the succeeding one it will be sweet. Some persons are of opinion that the pomegranate should be watered four times a year with a mixture of human urine and water, at the rate of an amphora to each tree; or else that the extremities of the branches should be sprinkled with silphium [Or laser. See B. xix. c. 15.] steeped in wine. The stalk of the pomegranate should be twisted, if it is found to split while on the tree. The fig, too, should be drenched with the amurca of olives, and other trees when they are ailing, with lees of wine; or else lupines may be sown about the roots. The water, too, of a decoction of lupines is beneficial to the fruit, if poured upon the roots of the tree. When it thunders at the time of the Vulcanalia, [See B. xviii. c. 35.] the figs fall off; the only remedy for which is to have the area beneath ready covered with barley-straw. Lime applied to the roots of the tree makes cherries come sooner to maturity, and ripen more rapidly. The best plan, too, with the cherry, as with all other kinds, is to thin the fruit, so that that which is left behind may grow all the larger.

(28.) There are some trees, again, which thrive all the better for being maltreated, [Pœnâ emendantur.] or else are stimulated by pungent substances; the palm and the mastich for instance, which derive nutriment from salt water. [It is very doubtful whether this is not likely to prove very injurious to them. This passage is from Theophrastus, De Causis, B. iii. c. 23.] Ashes have the same virtues as salt, only in a more modified degree; for which reason it is, that fig-trees are sprinkled with them; as also with rue, [Without any efficacy, beyond a doubt.] to keep away worms, and to prevent the roots from rotting. What is still more even, it is recommended to throw salt [The action of salt upon vegetation is, at the best, very uncertain.] water on the roots of vines, if they are too full of humours; and if the fruit falls off, to sprinkle them with ashes and vinegar, or with sandarach if the grapes are rotting. [These recipes are worthless, and almost impracticable.] If, again, a vine is not productive, it should be sprinkled and rubbed with strong vinegar and ashes; and if the grapes, instead of ripening, dry and shrivel up, the vine should be lopped near the roots, [This method is still adopted, but with none of the accessories here mentioned by Pliny.] 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 dangerous practice, Fée remarks, and certainly not to be adopted.] 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. [Mitior.]

Cato, [De Re Rust. 93.] too, gives receipts for certain medicaments, specifying 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 proportions, 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 affected with roughness of the bark. In the same way, too, [At the present day, fumigations are preferred to any such mixtures as those here described. Caterpillars are killed by the fumes of sulphur, bitumen, or damp straw.] to prevent the vine-fretter [“Convolvulus.” He alludes to the vine Pyralis, one of the Lepidoptera, the caterpillar of which rolls itself up in the leaves of the tree, after eating away the foot-stalk.] from attacking the tree, he recommends that two congii of amurca of olives should be boiled down to the consistency of honey, after which it must be boiled again with one-third part of bitumen, and one-fourth of sulphur; and this should be done, he says, in the open air, for fear of its igniting if prepared in-doors; with this mixture, the vine is to be anointed at the ends of the branches and at the axils; after which, no more fretters will be seen. Some persons are content to make a fumigation with this mixture while the wind is blowing towards the vine, for three days in succession.

Many persons, again, attribute no less utility and nutritious virtue to urine than Cato does to amurca; only they add to it an equal proportion of water, it being injurious if employed by itself. Some give the name of “volucre” [The “fly,” or “winged” insect. The grey weevil, Fée thinks, that eats the buds and the young grapes.] to an insect which eats away the young grapes: to prevent this, they rub the pruning-knife, every time it is sharpened, upon a beaver-skin, and then prune the tree with it: it is recommended also, that after the pruning, the knife should be well rubbed with the blood of a bear. [An absurd superstition.] Ants, too, are a great pest to trees; they are kept away, however, by smearing the trunk with red earth and tar: if a fish, too, is hung up in the vicinity of the tree, these insects will collect in that one spot. Another method, again, is to pound lupines in oil, [This may possibly be efficacious, but the other precepts here given are full of absurdity.] and anoint the roots with the mixture. Many people kill both ants as well as moles [It might possibly drive them to a distance, but would do no more.] with amurca, and preserve apples from caterpillars as well as from rotting, by touching the top of the tree with the gall of a green lizard.

Another method, too, of preventing caterpillars, is to make a woman, [An absurd notion, very similar to some connected with the same subject, which have prevailed even in recent times.] with her monthly courses on her, go round each tree, barefooted and ungirt. Again, for the purpose of preventing animals from doing mischief by browsing upon the leaves, they should be sprinkled with cow-dung each time after rain, the showers having the effect of washing away the virtues of this application.

The industry of man has really made some very wonderful discoveries, and, indeed, has gone so far as to lead many persons to believe, that hail-storms may be averted by means of a certain charm, the words of which I really could not venture seriously to transcribe; although we find that Cato [De Re Rust. 160. The words of this charm over the split reed while held near the injured limb, were as follow:—“Sanitas fracto—motas danata daries dardaries astataries”—mere gibberish.] has given those which are employed as a charm for sprained limbs, employing splints of reed in conjunction with it. The same author, [De Re Rust. 139. This prayer was offered to the deity of the sacred grove, after a pig had been first offered—“If thou art a god, or if thou art a goddess, to whom this grove is sacred, may it be allowed me, through the expiation made by this pig, and for the purpose of restraining the overgrowth of this grove, &c.” It must be remembered that it was considered a most heinous offence to cut down or lop a consecrated grove. See Ovid, Met. B. viii. c. 743.] too, has allowed of consecrated trees and groves being cut down, after a sacrifice has first been offered: the form of prayer, and the rest of the proceedings, will be found fully set forth in the same work of his.

Summary. —Remarkable facts, narratives, and observations, eight hundred and eighty.

Roman authors quoted. —Cornelius Nepos, [See end of B. ii.] Cato [See end of B. iii.] the Censor, M. Varro, [See end of B. ii.] Celsus, [See end of B. vii.] Virgil, [See end of B. vii.] Hyginus, [See end of B. iii.] Saserna [See end of B. x.] father and son, Scrofa, [See end of B..] Calpurnius Bassus, [See end of B..] Trogus, [See end of B. vii.] Æmilius Macer, [See end of B. ix.] Græcinus, [See end of B..] Columella, [See end of B. viii.] Atticus Julius, [See end of B..] Fabianus, [Fabianus Papirius; see end of B. ii.] Mamilius Sura, [See end of B. x.] Dossenus Mundus, [See end of B..] C. Epidius, [A Roman rhetorician, preceptor of Antony and Augustus. He is said to have claimed descent from Epidius, a deity worshipped on the banks of the Sarnus.] L. Piso. [See end of B. ii.]

Foreign authors quoted. —Hesiod, [See end of B. vii.] Theophrastus, [See end of B. iii.] Aristotle, [See end of B. ii.] Democritus, [See end of B. ii.] Theopompus, [See end of B. ii.] King Hiero, [See end of B. viii.] King Attalus [See end of B. viii.] Philometor, King Archelaus, [See end of B. viii.] Archytas, [See end of B. viii.] Xenophon, [For Xenophon of Athens, see end of B. iv. For Xenophon of Lampsacus, see end of B. iii.] Amphilochus [See end of B. viii.] of Athens, Anaxipolis [See end of B. viii.] of Thasos, Apollodorus [See end of B. viii.] of Lemnos, Aristophanes [See end of B. viii.] of Miletus, Antigonus [See end of B. viii.] of Cymæ, Agathocles [See end of B. viii.] of Chios, Apollonius [See end of B. viii.] of Pergamus, Bacchius [See end of B. viii.] of Miletus, Bion [See end of B. vi.] of Soli, Chæreas [See end of B. viii.] of Athens, Chæristus [See end of B..] of Athens, Diodorus [See end of B. viii.] of Priene, Dion [See end of B. viii.] of Colophon, Epigenes [See end of B. ii.] of Rhodes, Euagon [See end of B. x.] of Thasos, Euphronius [See end of B. viii.] of Athens, Androtion [See end of B. viii.] who wrote on Agriculture, Æschrion [See end of B. viii.] who wrote on Agriculture, Lysimachus [See end of B. viii.] who wrote on Agriculture, Dionysius [See end of B..] who translated Mago, Diophanes [See end of B. viii.] who made an Epitome of Dionysius, Aristander [See end of B. viii.] who wrote on Portents.