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It was probably so called from the circumstance that each triangle resembles V, or five.
[2964] This is the reason why a soil of only middling quality is generally selected for nurseries and seed-plots; otherwise it might be difficult to transplant the young trees to an improved soil.
[2965] The ordinary depth, at the present day, is about two feet; but when in an argillaceous soil, as Pliny says, the hole is made deeper. If the soil is black mould, the hole is not so deep, and of a square form, just as recommended by Pliny.
[2966] De Re Rust. 43.
[2967] This would be either useless, or positively injurious to the tree.
[2968] See B. xiv. c. [14]. It seems impossible to say with exactness how this passage came to be inserted in the context; but Sillig is probably right in suspecting that there is a considerable lacuna here. It is not improbable that Pliny may have enlarged upon the depth of the roots of trees, and the method of removing them in ancient times. Such being the case, he might think it not inappropriate to introduce the story of Papirius, who, when only intending to have a stump cut down that grew in the way, took the opportunity of frightening the prætor of Præneste, by the suddenness of the order to his lictor, and probably the peremptory tone in which it was given. This was all the more serious to the prætor, as Papirius had been rebuking him just before in the severest terms.
[2969] From the bundle of fasces, or rods.
[2970] This precept is borrowed from Virgil, Georg. ii. 348, et seq.
[2971] There is little doubt that they took the right view.