Page:Cicero - de senectute (on old age) - Peabody 1884.djvu/78

40 earth, which never refuses a draft, nor ever returns what has been committed to it without interest, and if sometimes at a small, generally at an ample rate of increase. Yet I am charmed not only with the revenue, but with the very nature and properties of the soil. When it has received the seed into its softened and prepared bosom, it keeps it buried (whence our word for the harrowing which buries the seed is derived), then by its pressure and by the moisture which it yields it cleaves the seed and draws out from it the green shoot, which, sustained by its rootlet-fibres, grows till it stands erect on its jointed stalk, enclosed in sheaths, as if to protect the down of its youth, till, emerging from them, it yields the grain, with its orderly arrangement in the ear, defended against predatory birds by its bearded rampart. What can I say of the planting, up-springing, and growth of vines? It is with insatiable delight that I thus make known to you the repose and enjoyment of my old age. Not to speak of the vital power of all things that grow directly from the earth,—which from so tiny a fig or grape seed, or from the very smallest seeds of other fruits or plants, produces such massive trunks and