“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 advantage as a wind break against the north where the trees will not shut out the sun.”

Stolo added the following advice from the same author:  ’If you have a piece of wet ground there plant cuttings of poplars, and also reeds which are set out as follows:  having turned the sod with a hoe plant the scions of reed three feet one from the other.  Wild asparagus (from which you may cultivate garden asparagus) should also be set out in such a place because the same kind of cultivation is suitable for it as for reeds.  You should set out Greek willows around the reed bed to supply ties for your vines.’

Of planting vines

XXV.  “In respect of planting vines,” resumed Scrofa, “it should be observed that the varieties fitted for the best land and exposure to the sun are the little Aminean, the twin Eugeneam and the little yellow kind:  while on rich or wet land the best varieties are the large Aminean, the Murgentine, the Apician and the Lucanian.  Other vines, and especially the mixed varieties, do well in any kind of land.”