But, before everything, especial care should be taken that intended remedies are not productive of ill results; as these may arise from either remedial measures being applied in excess or at unseasonable times. Clearing away the branches is of the greatest benefit to trees, but to slaughter[3244] them this way every year, is productive of the very worst results. The vine is the only tree that requires lopping every year, the myrtle, the pomegranate, and olive every other; the reason being that these trees shoot with great rapidity. The other trees are lopped less frequently, and none of them in autumn; the trunk even is never scraped,[3245] except in spring. In pruning a tree, all that is removed beyond what is absolutely necessary, is so much withdrawn from its vitality.
CHAP. 46.—THE PROPER MODE OF MANURING TREES.
The same precautions, too, are to be regarded in manuring. Though manure is grateful to the tree, still it is necessary to be careful not to apply it while the sun is hot, or while it is too new, or more stimulating than is absolutely necessary. The dung of swine will burn[3246] up the vine, if used at shorter intervals than those of five years; unless, indeed, it is mixed with water. The same is the case, too, with the refuse of the currier’s workshop, unless it is well diluted with water: manure will scorch also, if laid on land too plentifully. It is generally considered the proper proportion, to use three modii to every ten feet square; this, however, the nature of the soil must decide.
CHAP. 47.—MEDICAMENTS FOR TREES.
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 silphium[3247] 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 salt[3252] 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-fretter[3259] 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 moles[3263] 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.