Involving all the wood in smoky fires.

But most when driven by winds the flaming storm

Of the long files destroys the beauteous form;

In ashes then the unhappy vineyard lies,

Nor will the blasted plants from ruin rise,

Nor will the withered stock be green again,

But the wild olive shoots, and shades th’ ungrateful plain.

The next operation[[1513]] was to trench the ground and throw it into lofty ridges, which, by the operation of the summer sun, and the rain and winds and frosts of winter, were rendered mellow and genial. Occasionally a species of manure, composed[[1514]] of pounded acorns, lentils, and other vegetable substances, was dug in for the purpose of giving to the soil the warmth and fertility required by the vine.

The ground having remained in this state during a whole year, its surface was levelled, and a series of shallow furrows traced for the slips by line, rather close, on rich alluvial plains, but diverging more and more[[1515]] in proportion to the elevation of the site. Generally the vine was propagated by slips of moderate length, planted sometimes upright or à l’aiguille,[[1516]] as the phrase is in Languedoc, sometimes obliquely,[[1517]] which was generally supposed to be the better fashion. Along with the slip a handfull of grape-stones was usually cast into the furrow,[[1518]] those of the green grape with the purple vine, and those of the purple with the green, in order to cause it the sooner to take root. With some the practice was always to set two slips together, so that if one missed the other might take, and when both grew, the weaker was cut off or removed. Several stones,[[1519]] about the size of the fist, were placed round the slip above whatever manure was used, the belief being, that they would aid in preventing the root from being scorched by the sun in the heats of summer.[[1520]] Some touched the lower point of the slip with cedar oil which prevented it from decaying, and likewise by its odour repelled vermin.

To produce grapes without stones the lower end of the slip was split, and the pith carefully extracted with an ear-pick.[[1521]] It was then bound round with a papyrus leaf, thrust into a sea-onion and thus planted. Vines producing medicinal grapes were created by withdrawing the pith from the lower part of the slip, but without splitting, and introducing certain drugs into the hollow,[[1522]] closing up the extremity with papyrus and thus setting it in the earth. The wine, the grape, the leaves, and even the ashes of such a vine were thought to be a remedy against the bite of serpents and dogs, though no security against hydrophobia. Another mode of producing stoneless grapes was to cut short all the branches of a vine already growing, extract the pith from the ends of them, and fill up the cavity once a-week with the juice of sylphion,[[1523]] binding them carefully to props that the liquor might not escape. A method was also in use of producing green and purple grapes on the same cluster.[[1524]] This was to take two slips as nearly as possible of the same size, the one of the white, the other of the black grape, and, having split them down the middle, carefully to fit the halves to their opposites, so that the buds, when divided, should exactly meet. They were then bound tight together with papyrus thread, and placed in the earth in a sea-onion,[[1525]] whose glutinous juice aided the growing together of the severed parts. Sometimes instead of slips, offshoots removed from the trunk of a large vine, with roots attached to them, were used. On other occasions the vine was grafted, like any other fruit-tree, on a variety of stocks,[[1526]] each modifying the quality and flavour of the grape. Thus a vine grafted on a myrtle-stock,[[1527]] produced fruit partaking of the character of the myrtle-berry. Grafted on a cherry-tree, its grapes underwent a different change, and ripened, like cherries, in the spring. As the clay encircling the junctures of these grafts grew dry, and somewhat cracked in hot summers, it was customary for gardeners to moisten them every evening with a sponge dipped in water.[[1528]]