Page:Virgil - The Georgics, Thomas Nevile, 1767.djvu/46

 34 And leave their sylvan genius, if with care

You graff them, or to order'd trenches bear.

Nor less to art the steril suckers yield,

If once transplanted to the spacious field:

Darken'd by leaves and boughs no fruit they know;

Their mother screens, and blasts them as they blow.

Trees, that have sprung from casual seed, slow rise:

But late posterity their shade shall prize.

Apples, their former flavour lost, decay:

And grapes but ripen to the birds a prey.

Culture and cost all equally demand,

To tame, and force them in the furrow'd land.

To Paphian myrtles solid wood assign;

To olives truncheons, layers to the vine;

Thus best each thrives: from suckers ashes grow;

The tree, that branches for Alcides' brow;

Hazels, and acorns of Chaonia's Sire,

Sea-faring fir, and palms this way aspire.

From walnuts the rough arbutes graffs receive;

To barren planes an offspring apples give;

To chesnuts beaches; Ashes learn to bear

The paly blossom of the downy pear;

And grafted elms, o'er-charg'd with bitter mast,

Spread to the crunching swine a rich repast.

Nor