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CHAP. 15.—THE MODE OF PROPAGATING THE ELM.

The elm seed is collected about the calends of March,1 before the tree is covered with leaves, but is just beginning to have a yellow tint. It is then left to dry two days in the shade, after which it is thickly sown in a broken soil, earth that has been riddled through a fine sieve being thrown upon it, to the same thickness as in the case of the cypress.2 It there should happen to be no rain, it is necessary to water the seed. From the nursery the young plants are carried at the end of a year to the elm-plots, where they are planted at intervals of a foot each way. It is better to plant elms in autumn that are to support the vine, as they are destitute3 of seed and are only propagated from plants. In the vicinity of the City, the young elms are transplanted into the vineyard at five years old, or, according to the plan adopted by some, when they are twenty feet in height. A furrow is first drawn for the purpose, the name given to which is "novenarius,"4 being three feet in depth, and the same in breadth or even more; into this the young tree is put, and the earth is moulded up around it to the height of three feet every way. These mounds are known by the name of "arula"5 in Campania. The intervals are arranged according to the nature of the spot; but where the country is level, it is requisite that the trees should be planted wider apart. Poplars and ashes, too, as they ger- minate with greater rapidity, ought to be planted out at an earlier period, or, in other words, immediately after the ides of February.6 In arranging trees and shrubs for the support of the vine, the form of the quincunx7 is the one that is gene- rally adopted, and, indeed, is absolutely necessary: it not only facilitates the action of the wind, but presents also a very Pleasing appearance, for whichever way you look at the plantation the trees will always present themselves in a straight Line. The same method is employed in propagating the poplar from seed as the elm, and the mode of transplanting it from the seed-plot is the same as that adopted in transplanting it from the forests.

1 First of March.

2 The thickness of the thumb. See the last Chapter.

3 He alludes to the Atinian elm, of which he has already said the same in B. xvi. c. 29.

4 From being about nine feet in circumference.

5 A "little altar."

6 13th of February.

7 I. e. each at an angle with the other, in this form:— * * * * * * * * It was probably so called from the circumstance that each triangle resembles V, or five.

The Natural History. Pliny the Elder. John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A. London. Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. 1855.

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