—Adultâ vitium propagine Altas maritat populos, Inutilesque falce ramos amputans Feliciores inserit. Horat. Epod. ii. 9, seq. Footnote 1527: Geop. iv. 4, seq. Footnote 1528: Geop. iv. 12. ----- The husbandmen of antiquity were often somewhat fanciful in their practices. In order, when forming a nursery,[1529] to coax the young plants to grow, the beds to which they were transferred, were formed of a stratum of earth brought from the vineyard whence they also were taken. Another nicety was to take care, that they occupied precisely the same position with respect to the quarters of the heavens[1530] as when growing on the parent stock.[1531] “Besides to plant it as it was they mark The heaven’s four quarters on the tender bark, And to the north or south restore the side Which at their birth did heat or cold abide, So strong is custom; such effects can use In tender souls of pliant plants produce.” ----- Footnote 1529: Virg. Georg. ii. 265, seq. Footnote 1530: Lord Bacon gives this experiment a place in his philosophy, observing, that “in all trees when they be removed (especially fruit-trees) care ought to be taken that the sides of the trees be coasted (north and south) and as they stood before.” Sylva Sylvarum, 471. Footnote 1531: Virg. Georg. ii. 270, seq. ----- When desirous of extending the plantation in an old vineyard, instead of the methods above described, they had recourse to another, which was to bend down[1532] the vine branch, and bury it up to the point in the earth, where it would take root, and send forth a new vine, and in this way a long series of leafy arcades[1533] may sometimes have been formed. At the foot of their vines some cultivators were in the habit of burying three goats’ horns[1534] with their points downwards, and the other end appearing above the soil. These they regarded as so many receptacles for receiving and gradually conveying water to the roots, and, consequently, an active cause of the vines’ fertility. ----- Footnote 1532: An analogous practice is observed in the pepper gardens of Sumatra:—“When the vines originally planted to any of the chinkareens (or props) are observed to fail or miss; instead of replacing them with new plants, they frequently conduct one of the shoots, or suckers, from a neighbouring vine, to the spot, through a trench made in the ground, and there suffer it to rise up anew, often at the distance of twelve or fourteen feet from the parent stock.” Marsden, History of Sumatra, p. 111. Footnote 1533: Virg. Georg. ii. 26. Serv. ad loc. Footnote 1534: Geop. iv. 2. The nymphs are said to have been the nurses of Bacchos, because water supplied moisture to the vine. The explanation of Athenæus is forced and cold. ii. 2. -----