Page:Virgil - The Georgics, Thomas Nevile, 1767.djvu/44

 32 Unconscious of man's toil, and wide abound:

As flexile broom, that loves the champaign-ground,

Poplars, and osiers soft, near rivers seen,

And willows hoar with leaves of blueish green.

From seed, fortuitously dropt, part rise;

Such as the chesnut, tow'ring to the skies,

The beech, of trees with broadest foliage fraught,

And oaks, oracular by Grecians thought.

Others, as elms and cherries, from their root

See a thick grove of springing suckers shoot:

Ev'n the Parnassian Bay, while young, seeks aid

From the vast shelter of parental shade.

These methods Nature taught; by means like these

Flourish shrubs, hallow'd groves, and forest-trees.

Methods there are, which gradual Use has found:

This puts young suckers in the furrow'd ground,

Torn from the mother's tender trunk: that takes

Sets, cleft in four, or sharpen'd into stakes,

And buries: from the tortur'd layer's sweep

In their own earth some trees delight to keep

A living nursery; while others need

No root, but from the tops of sprigs succeed.

Ev'n from dry cuttings of a stock will shoot,

Wond'rous to tell! an olive's spreading root: And