Andrew Wallace ( who is now my alternative grape vine - grow researcher ) sharedthis gripping pdf on grow grape vines on elm tree tree .
Many papistic books on Agriculture have lasted to the present day . Cato ’s De Agri Cultura ( 2nd Century BC ) is the oldest known prose workplace written in Latin . unlike authors ( Brehaud , 1933 ; Sáez 1996 ) indicate that the grandness given by Cato to vine and olive speculate the transition from subsistence agriculture , based on cereals , towards a more commercial agriculture , in which wine and olives bet a significant function .
In his oeuvre , Cato explains the means vines should be married to trees , and how both should be rationalize : Be sure to start in good meter to rationalise vine train on tree and to stratum vine .
“ Be certain to train vine upward , as much as you’re able to . The trees are to be pruned thus : the branch that you leave to be well separate ; cut straight ; do not leave too many . Vines should have good knot on each treebranch . Take dandy upkeep not to ‘ precipitate’the vine and not to tie it too tight . Be certain that trees are well marital , and that vine are planted in sufficient numbers : where appropriate , detach vines entirely from the tree diagram , layer to the ground , and separate from the stock two years afterward . ” ( De Agri Cultura 32 ; Dalby , 1998 ) .
Although he did not signal which species should be used , elms are cite many times in his account book : they provide fodder for sheep and cattle ( De Agri Cultura 5 , 6 , 17 , 30 and 54 ) and how and where they can be transplanted is also argue ( De Agri Cultura 28 and 40 ) . The second Roman cite to the cultivation of elms is base in Varro ’s De Re Rustica .
Marcus Terentius Varro ( 116 BC-27 BC ) was Roman senator and led Pompeian violence in the Iberian Peninsula during the civil warfare . In his text , he study elm the best Tree for orchard because they are good props for vines , good cannon fodder for cattle , they cater good perch for fence and firewood ( Gil et al . , 2003 ) .
By the first century BC the cultivation of elms and vine together had become such a frequent part of the Italian landscape that the plant theme begin to be used by Latin poet . Gaius Valerius Catullus ( c. 84 BC - c. 54 BC ) , papist writer contemporary of Varro , inaugurate the topic of the marriage of vines and elm to literature . Catullus identified vine and elm with wife and husband , respectively , in Carmina ( Poem LXII : Nuptial Song By Youths And Damsels , verses 49 - 60 ; Burton and Smithers , 1894 ):
“ E’en as an unmated vine which have a bun in the oven in field of the barest Never raise nous nor breeds the mellowy grape - bunch , But under weight prone - defer that bid body a - bending name she her root anon to refer her topmost of tendrils ; Tends her never a hind nor incline her ever a herdsman : Yet if haply conjoined the same with elm as a husband , incline her many a hind and tends her many a herder : Thus is the maid when whole , uncultured wax she aged ; But when as union get together she wins her at ripest of seasons , More to her spouse she is near and less she ’s irk to her parents . ” Hymen O Hymenaeus , Hymen here , O Hymenaeus !
The Latin poet and mime Publius Syrus also live in the 1st century ( c. 85 BC-43 BC ) . aboriginal of Syria ( hence his name ) , he was land as a slave to Italy , but soon he was disembarrass and school by his master . His mime became well know in the provincial towns of Italy and at the games give by Caesar in 46 BC .
All that remain of his work is a collection of Sentences ( Sententiae ) , a serial of moral maxims . One of these sentences says Pirum , non ulmum accedas , si cupias pira ( You should go to a pear - Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree for pears , not to an elmwood ; Nisard , 1903 ) . This maxim is probably the origin of the Spanish expression No se le pueden pedir peras al olmo ( you may not involve the elm for pears ) and the Portuguese Não pode o ulmeiro dar peras ( The elm can not give pears ) . With the meaning of ask for something that is unsufferable , the Spanish expressions would appear seventeen centuries later in Cervantes ’ Don Quixote , when vines were seldom plant together with elms as we shall see . But why did Syrus compare a pear tree with an elm tree , a species that does not produce edible fruits , rather of with any yield tree diagram like an orchard apple tree , a cherry or a plum tree diagram ? The cause is , in our opinion , the cultivation of elms with grapevines , more frequent than other fruit tree diagram Plantation because of the higher profit obtained from the wine . Thus , although not pears , for Syrus the elms did give a fruit : grape .
I love it . Now I ’m go to have to do some experimentation .
