The subject of the following book is planting; in handling of which argument, the poet shows all the different methods of raising trees, describes their variety, and gives rules for the management of each in particular. He then points out the soils in which the several plants thrive best, aud thence takes occasion to run out into the praises of Italy; after which, he gives some directions for discovering the nature of every soil, prescribes rules for dressing of vines, olives, &c. and concludes the Georgic with a panegyric on a country life.
THUS far of tillage, and of heav'nly signs;
Now sing, my Muse, the growth of gen'rous vines,
The shady groves, the woodland progeny,
And the slow product of Minerva's tree.
Great father Bacchus! to my song repair;
For clust'ring grapes are thy peculiar care:
For thee large bunches load the bending vine;
And the last blessings of the year are thine.
To thee his joys the jolly Autumn owes,
When the fermenting juice the vat o'erflows.
Come, strip with me, my god! come drench all o'er
Thy limbs in must of wine, and drink at ev'ry pore.
Some trees their birth to bounteous nature owe;
For some, without the pains of planting, grow.
With osiers thus the banks of brooks abound,
Sprung from the wat'ry genius of the ground.
From the same principles gray willows come,
Herculean poplar, and the tender broom.
But some, from seeds inclos'd in earth arise;
For thus the mastful chestnut mates the skies.
Hence rise the branching beech and vocal oak,
Where Jove of old oraculously spoke.
Some from the root a rising wood disclose:
Thus elms, and thus the savage cherry grows:
Thus the green bay, that binds the poet's brows,
Shoots, and is shelter'd by the mother's boughs,
These ways of planting Nature did ordain,
For trees and shrubs, and all the sylvan reign.
Others there are, by late experience found,
Some cut the shoots, and plant in furrow'd ground; 30
Some cover rooted stalks in deeper mould;
Some, cloven-stakes; and (wond'rous to behold!)
Their sharpen'd ends in earth their footing place;
And the dry poles produce a living race;
Some bow their vines, which buried in the plain;
Their tops in distant arches rise again.
Others no root require; the lab'rer cuts
Young slips, and in the soil securely puts.
Ev'n stumps of olives, bar'd of leaves, and dead,
Revive, and oft redeem their wither'd head.
"Tis usual now an inmate graff to see
With insolence invade a foreign tree:
Thus pears and quinces from the crabtree come;
And thus the ready cornel bears the plum.
Then let the learned gard'ner mark with care
The kinds of stocks, and what those kinds will bear;
Explore the nature of each sev'ral tree,
And, known, improve with artful industry;
And let no spot of idle earth be found;
But cultivate the genius of the ground:
For open Ismarus will Bacchus please;
Taburnus loves the shade of olive-trees.
The virtues of the sev'ral soils I sing.-
Mæcenas, now thy needful succour bring!
O thou, the better part of my renown,
Inspire thy poet, and thy poem crown:
Embark with me, while I new tracts explore,
With flying sails and breezes from the shore:
Not that my song in such a scanty space,
So large a subject fully can embrace-
Not though I were supplied with iron lungs,
A hundred mouths, fill'd with as many tongues:
But steer my vessel with a steady hand,
And coast along the shore in sight of land.
Nor will I tire thy patience with a train
Of preface, or what ancient poets feign.
The trees which of themselves advance in air,
Are barren kinds, but strongly built and fair,
Because the vigour of the native earth
Maintains the plant, and makes a manly birth.
Yet these, receiving grafts of other kind,
Or thence transplanted, change their savage mind,
Their wildness lose, and, quitting nature's part,
Obey the rules and discipline of art.
The same do trees, that, sprung from barren roots,
In open fields transplanted bear their fruits.
For, where they grow, the native energy,
Turns all into the substance of the tree,
Starves and destroys the fruit, is only made
For brawny bulk, and for a barren shade.
The plant that shoots from seed, a sullen tree,
At leisure grows, for late posterity;
The gen'rous flavour lost, the fruits decay,
And savage grapes are made the bird's ignoble prey.
Much labour is requir'd in trees, to tame
Their wild disorder, and in ranks reclaim.
Well must the ground be digg'd, and better dress'd,
New soil to make, and meliorate the rest.
Old stakes of olive trees in plants revive
By the same method Paphian myrtles live:
But nobler vines by propagation thrive.
From roots hard hazels, and from cions rise,
Tall ash, and taller oak that mates the skies;
Palm, poplar, fir, descending from the steep
Of hills, to try the dangers of the deep.
The thin-leav'd arbute hazel-graffs receives;
And planes huge apples bear, that bore but leaves.
Thus mastful beech the bristly chestnut bears,
And the wild ash is white with blooming pears.
And greedy swine from grafted elms are fed
With falling acorns, that on oaks are bred.
But various are the ways to change the state
Of plants, to bud, to graff, t' inoculate.
For, where the tender rinds of trees disclose
Their shooting gems, a swelling knot there grows: 105
Just in that space a narrow slit we make;
Then other buds from bearing trees we take;
Inserted thus the wounded rind we close,
In whose moist womb th' admitted infant grows.
But. when the smoother bole from knots is free,
We make a deep incision in the tree.
And in the solid wood the slip inclose;
The batt'ning bastard shoots again and grows;
And in short space the laden boughs arise,
With happy fruit advancing to the skies.
The mother plant admires the leaves unknown
Of alien trees, and apples not her own.
Of vegetable woods are various kinds;
And the same species are of several minds.
Lotes, willows, elms, have different forms allow'd; 120
So fun'ral cypress, rising like a shroud.
Fat olive trees of sundry sorts appear,
Of sundry shapes: their unctious berries bear.
Radii long olives, orchites round produce,
And bitter pausia, pounded for the juice.
Alcinous' orchard various apples bears:
Unlike are burgamots and pounder pears.
Nor our Italian vines produce the shape,
Or taste, or flavour of the Lesbian grape.
The Thasian vines in richer soils abound;
The Mareotic grow in harren ground.
The Psythian grape we dry: Lagean juice
Will stamm'ring tongues and stagg'ring feet produce.
Rath ripe are some, and some of later kind,
Of golden some, and some of purple rind.
How shall I praise the Rhotian grape divine,
Which yet contends not with Falernian wine?
Th' Arminian many a consulship survives,
And longer than the Lydian vintage lives,
Or high hanæus, king of Chian growth:
But, for large quantities and lasting, both,
The less Argitis bears the prize away,
The Rhodian, sacred to the solemn day,
In second services is pour'd to Jove,
And best accepted by the gods above.
Nor must Bumastus his old honours lose,
In length and largeness like the dugs of cows.
I pass the rest, whose ev
And kinds, are less material to my theme;
Which, who would learn, as soon may tell the sands,150 Driv'n by the western wind on Libyan lands;
Or number, when the blust'ring Eurus roars,
The billows beating on lonian shores.
Nor ev'ry plant on ev'ry soil will grow :
The sallow loves the wat'ry ground and low;
The marshes, alders: Nature seems t' ordain
The rocky cliff for the wild ash's reign;
The baleful yew to northern blasts assigns,
To shores the myrtles, and to mounts the vines.
Regard the extremest cultivated coast,
Of happy shrubs in Idumæan plains.
The green Egyptian thorn, for med'cine good,
With Ethiops' hoary trees and woolly wood,
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