BOOK XVII. xv. 77-xvi. 80
3 ft. broad and even larger. When they have been planted, mounds 3 ft. high from the ground level should be heaped round them—the name for these mounds in Campania is 'little altars'. The spacing must be settled according to the nature of the place: in level country it is suitable to plant the young trees wider apart. It is also proper to plant out poplars and ashes earlier, because they bud more quickly—that is, planting should start on the 13th of February: these trees also growing from cuttings. In spacing out trees and plantations and planning vineyards the diagonal arrangementa of rows is commonly adopted and is essential, being not only advantageous in allowing the passage of air, but also agreeable in appearance, as in whatever direction you look at the plantation a row of trees stretches out in a straight line. In the case of poplars the same method of growing them from seed is used as with elms, and also the same method of transplanting them from nurseries or forests.
Transplanting.XVI. It is consequently of the first importance for shoots to be transplanted into similar or better soil, and not moved from warm or early ripening positions into cold or backward ones, nor yet from the latter to the former either; and to dig the trenches some time in advance—if possible, long enough before to allow the holes to get covered over with thick turf. Mago advises a year in advance, so as to let the holes absorb the sunshine and rain, or, if circumstances do not allow of this, he recommends making fires in the middle of the holes two months before, and only planting the seedlings in the holes so prepared just after rain has fallen. He says that in a clay soil or a hard soil the pits should measure 4 ft. 6 in. each way, or 4 inches more on sloping sites, and he prescribes55
