ans as much as possible in your corn
land. There are other plants which seek dry places, and still others
demand shade, like asparagus, both when wild and cultivated: while
violets and garden flowers, which flourish in the sun should be set
out in the open.
"So other things demand other planting conditions, like the osiers
from which you derive your material for making basket ware, for wagon
frames, winnowing baskets and grape hampers. Elsewhere you might plant
and cultivate a forest for cut wood and a spinney for fowling.
"So you should reserve ground for planting hemp, flax, rush and Spanish
broom (spartum) which serve to make shoes for the cattle, thread,
cord and rope. Other situations are suitable for still other kinds
of planting, as, for example, some plant garden truck and some plant
other things, in a nursery, or between the rows of a young orchard
before the roots of the trees have spread far out, but this should
never be done when the trees have grown lest the roots be injured."
"In this respect," said Stolo, "what Cato says about planting is in
point, that a field which is rich and in good heart and without shade
should be planted in corn, while a low lying field should be set in
turnips, radishes, millet and panic grass."
_Of planting olives_
XXIV. Scrofa resumed: "The varieties of olives to plant in rich and
warm land are the preserving olive _radius major_, the olive of
Sallentina, the round _orchis_, the bitter _posea_, the Sergian, the
Colminian, and the waxy _albicera_: which ever of these does best in
your locality, plant that most extensively. An olive yard is not worth
cultivating unless it looks to the west wind and is exposed to the
sun; if the soil is cold and thin there you should plant the Licinian
olive, for if you set out this variety in a rich and warm soil it will
never make a _hostus_ and the tree will exhaust itself in bearing and
will become infected with red moss. (_Hostus_ is the country name for
the yield of oil from a single tree at each _factus_ or pressing: some
claim this should amount to 160 _modii_, while others reduce it to 120
_modii_, and even less in proportion to the size and number of their
storage vats.)
"Cato advises you to plant elms and poplars around the farm so as to
obtain from them leaves to feed the sheep and cattle as well as a
supply of lumber: while this is not necessary on all farms, nor in
some for the forage alone, it may be done with advantag
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