The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 3 (of 6)

Chapter 448: CHAP. 45.—ERRORS THAT MAY BE COMMITTED IN PRUNING.

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The work assembles systematic observations on animals, insects, and trees, combining natural history with practical notes. It surveys insect forms and habits, including bees, silk‑producing worms, spiders, and parasitic species, and discusses reproduction, classification, diseases, and useful products like honey and silk. It then examines animal anatomy in detail, limb by limb and organ by organ, comparing organs, vital functions, and bodily peculiarities across species. Later sections catalogue trees and exotic plants, describing aromatic gums, spices, frankincense, myrrh, and methods for producing and testing unguents and perfumes, and noting their uses and regions of origin.

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 3244 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,3245 except in spring. In pruning a tree, all that is removed beyond what is absolutely necessary, is so much withdrawn from its vitality.