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 silphium3247 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,3248 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,3249 or else are stimulated by pungent substances; the palm and the mastich for instance, which derive nutriment from salt water.3250 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,3251 to keep away worms, and to prevent the roots from rotting. What is still more even, it is recommended to throw salt3252 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.3253 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,3254 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,3255 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.3256

Cato,3257 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,3258 to prevent the vine-fretter3259 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”3260 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.3261 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,3262 and anoint the roots with the mixture. Many people kill both ants as well as moles3263 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,3264 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 Cato3265 has given those which are employed as a charm for sprained limbs, employing splints of reed in conjunction with it. The same author,3266 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,3267 Cato3268 the Censor, M. Varro,3269 Celsus,3270 Virgil,3271 Hyginus,3272 Saserna3273 father and son, Scrofa,3274 Calpurnius Bassus,3275 Trogus,3276 Æmilius Macer,3277 Græcinus,3278 Columella,3279 Atticus Julius,3280 Fabianus,3281 Mamilius Sura,3282 Dossenus Mundus,3283 C. Epidius,3284 L. Piso.3285

Foreign authors quoted.—Hesiod,3286 Theophrastus,3287 Aristotle,3288 Democritus,3289 Theopompus,3290 King Hiero,3291 King Attalus3292 Philometor, King Archelaus,3293 Archytas,3294 Xenophon,3295 Amphilochus3296 of Athens, Anaxipolis3297 of Thasos, Apollodorus3298 of Lemnos, Aristophanes3299 of Miletus, Antigonus3300 of Cymæ, Agathocles3301 of Chios, Apollonius3302 of Pergamus, Bacchius3303 of Miletus, Bion3304 of Soli, Chæreas3305 of Athens, Chæristus3306 of Athens, Diodorus3307 of Priene, Dion3308 of Colophon, Epigenes3309 of Rhodes, Euagon3310 of Thasos, Euphronius3311 of Athens, Androtion3312 who wrote on Agriculture, Æschrion3313 who wrote on Agriculture, Lysimachus3314 who wrote on Agriculture, Dionysius3315 who translated Mago, Diophanes3316 who made an Epitome of Dionysius, Aristander3317 who wrote on Portents.