[2524] This is not the fact: the fruits of all trees have their proper time for ripening.
[2525] He speaks here in too general terms; the pear, for instance, is not more fruitful when old than when young.
[2526] He speaks of the process of caprification. See B. xv. c. [21].
[2527] So our proverb, “Soon ripe, soon rotten;” applicable to mankind as well as trees. See B. xxiii. c. 23.
[2528] See B. xv. c. [27]. The mulberry tree will live for several centuries.
[2529] This stimulates the sap, and adds to its activity: but the tree grows old all the sooner, being the more speedily exhausted.
[2530] In cc. [9-14] of the present Book.
[2531] This passage is quite unintelligible; and it is with good reason that Fée questions whether Pliny really understood the author that he copied from.
[2532] Fée remarks, that Pliny does not seem to know that the catkin is an assemblage of flowers, and that without it the tree would be totally barren.
[2533] Pliny blunders sadly here, in copying from Theophrastus, B. iii. c. 16. He mixes up a description of the box and the cratægus, or holm-oak, making the latter to be a seed of the former: and he then attributes a mistletoe to the box, which Theophrastus speaks of as growing on the cratægus.