Page:Cicero - de senectute (on old age) - Peabody 1884.djvu/79

Rh branches,—do not shoots, scions, quicksets, layers, accomplish results which no one can behold without delighted admiration? The vine, indeed, drooping by nature, unless supported, is weighed down to the ground; but to raise itself it embraces with its hand-like tendrils whatever it can lay hold upon; and then, as it twines with multifold and diffusive growth, the art of the vine-dresser trims it close with the pruning-knife, that it may not run unto useless wood and spread too far. Thus in the early spring, in what remains after the pruning, the gem (so called) starts out at the joints of the twigs, from which the incipient cluster of grapes makes its appearance; and this, growing by the moisture of the earth and the heat of the sun, is at first very sour to the taste; then, as it ripens, it becomes sweet, while, clothed with leaves, it lacks not moderate warmth, and at the same time escapes the sun's intenser beams. What can be more gladdening than the fruit of the vine; what more beautiful, as it hangs ungathered? I am charmed, as I have said, not only with the utility of the vine, but equally with the whole process of its cultivation and with its very nature,—with its rows of stakes, the lateral supports from stake to stake, the tying up and training of the vines, the amputation of some of the twigs, of which I have spoken, and the planting of others. What can I tell you of irrigation, and of the repeated digging of the soil to make the ground more fertile? What shall I say of the