A vineyard, consisting wholly of Anadendrades,[1550] most common in Attica, presented, in spring and summer, a very picturesque appearance, especially when situated on the sharp declivity of a hill.[1551] The trees designed for the support of the vines,[1552] planted in straight lines, and rising behind each other, terrace above terrace, at intervals of three or four and twenty feet, were beautiful in form and varied in feature, consisting generally of the black poplar, the ash, the maple, the elm,[1553] and probably, also, the platane, which is still employed for this purpose in Crete.[1554] Though kept low in some situations, where the soil was scanty, they were, in others, allowed to run to thirty or forty, and sometimes, as in Bithynia, even to sixty feet in height. ----- Footnote 1550: Which were pruned in January (Geop. iii. 1), and esteemed the most useful, iv. 1. The solidest and hardest vines were thought to bear the least fruit. Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 4. 1. Cf. Chandler, i. 98. Footnote 1551: Dem. in Nicostrat. § 5. Footnote 1552: “Vitem viduas ducit ad arbores.” Hor. Carm. iv. 5. 30. Footnote 1553: Virg. Georg. ii. 361, seq. An amictâ vitibus ulmo. Hor. Epist. i. 16. 3. Footnote 1554: Pashley, Travels, ii. 22. The oak is now used for the same purpose in Asia Minor. Chandler, i. 114. ----- The face of the tree along which the vine climbed was cut down sheer like a wall, against which the purple or golden clusters hung thickly suspended, while the young branches crept along the boughs, or over bridges of reeds,[1555] uniting tree with tree, and, when touched with the rich tints of autumn, delighting the eye by an extraordinary variety of foliage. As the lower boughs of these noble trees were carefully lopped away, a series of lofty arches was created, beneath which the breezes could freely play, abundant currents of pure air being regarded as no less essential to the perfect maturing of the grape[1556] than constant sunshine. Sometimes the vine, in its ascent, was suffered to wind round the trunk of its supporter, which, however, by the most judicious husbandmen, was considered prejudicial, since the profusion of ligatures which it threw out in its passage upwards was thought to exhaust too much of its strength, to prevent which wooden wedges[1557] were here and there inserted between the vine stem and the tree. In trailing the branches, moreover, along the boughs, care was taken to keep them as much as possible on the upper side, that they might enjoy a greater amount of sunshine, and be the more exposed to be agitated by the winds. ----- Footnote 1555: Gœttling ad Hesiod. Scut. Heracl. 298. Footnote 1556: