The virtues of the several soils I sing.-- Mæcenas, now thy needful succour bring! O thou! the better part of my renown, Inspire thy poet, and thy poem crown: Embark with me, while I new tracts explore, With flying sails and breezes from the shore: Not that my song, in such a scanty space, So large a subject fully can embrace-- Not though I were supplied with iron lungs, A hundred mouths, filled with as many tongues: But steer my vessel with a steady hand, And coast along the shore in sight of land. Nor will I tire thy patience with a train Of preface, or what ancient poets feign. The trees, which of themselves advance in air, Are barren kinds, but strongly built and fair, Because the vigour of the native earth Maintains the plant, and makes a manly birth. Yet these, receiving graffs of other kind, Or thence transplanted, change their savage mind, Their wildness lose, and, quitting nature's part, Obey the rules and discipline of art. The same do trees, that, sprung from barren roots, In open fields transplanted bear their fruits. For, where they grow, the native energy Turns all into the substance of the tree, Starves and destroys the fruit, is only made For brawny bulk, and for a barren shade. The plant that shoots from seed, a sullen tree, At leisure grows, for late posterity; The generous flavour lost, the fruits decay, And savage grapes are made the birds' ignoble prey. Much labour is required in trees, to tame Their wild disorder, and in ranks reclaim. Well must the ground be digged, and better dressed, New soil to make, and meliorate the rest. Old stakes of olive-trees in plants revive; } By the same method Paphian myrtles live; } But nobler vines by propagation thrive. } From roots hard hazels, and from cions, rise; Tall ash, and taller oak that mates the skies; Palm, poplar, fir, descending from the steep Of hills, to try the dangers of the deep. The thin-leaved arbute hazel-graffs receives; And planes huge apples bear, that bore but leaves. Thus mastful beech the bristly chesnut bears, And the wild ash is white with blooming pears, And greedy swine from grafted elms are fed With falling acorns, that on oaks are bred. But various are the ways to change the state Of plants, to bud, to graff, to inoculate. For, where the tender rinds of trees disclose Their shooting gems, a swelling knot there grows; Just in that space a narrow slit we make, Then other buds from bearing trees we take; Inserted thus, the wounded rind we close, In whose moist womb the admitted infant grows. But, when the smoother bole from knots is free, We make a deep incision in the tree, And in the solid wood the slip inclose; The batt'ning bastard shoots again and grows; And in short space the laden boughs arise, With happy fruit advancing to the skies.