Marcus Cato on Agriculture 201olive planting is that which faces the west and is exposed to the sun; no other will
be good. Plant the Licinian olive in colder and thinner soil. If you plant it in heavy
or warm soil the yield will be worthless, the tree will exhaust itself in bearing, and
a reddish scale will injure it. Around the borders of the farm and along the roads
plant elms and some poplars, so that you may have leaves for the sheep and cattle;
and the timber will be available if you need it. Wherever there is a river bank or wet
ground, plant poplar cuttings and a reed thicket. The method of planting is as fol-
lows: turn the ground with the mattock and then plant the eyes of the reed three
feet apart. Plant there also the wild asparagus,^17 so that it may produce asparagus;
for a reed thicket goes well with the wild asparagus, because it is worked and
burned over, and furnishes a shade when shade is needed. Plant Greek willows
along the border of the thicket, so that you may have withes for tying up vines.
Choose soil for laying out a vineyard by the following rules: In soil which is
thought to be best adapted for grapes and which is exposed to the sun, plant the
small Aminnian,^18 the double eugeneum and the small parti-coloured; in soil that
is heavy or more subject to fogs plant the large Aminnian, the Murgentian, the
Apician and the Lucanian. The other varieties, and especially the hybrids, grow
well anywhere.
VII. It is especially desirable to have a plantation^19 on a suburban farm, so that
firewood and faggots may be sold, and also may be furnished for the master’s use. On
the same farm should be planted anything adapted to the soil, and several varieties of
grapes, such as the small and large Aminnian and the Apician. Grapes are preserved
in grape-pulp in jars;^20 also they keep well in boiled wine, or must, or after-wine.^21
You may hang up the hard-berried and the larger Aminnian and they will keep as
well dried before the forge fire as when spread in the sun. Plant or ingraft all kinds of
fruit – sparrow-apples, Scantian and Quirinian quinces,^22 also other varieties for
preserving, must-apples and pomegranates (the urine or dung of swine should be
applied around the roots of these to serve as food for the fruit); of pears, the volema,
the Anician frost-pears (these are excellent when preserved in boiled wine),^23 the
Tarentine, the must-pear, the gourd-pear and as many other varieties as possible; of
olives, the orcite and posea, which are excellent when preserved green in brine or
bruised in mastic^24 oil. When the orcites are black and dry, powder them with salt for
five days; then shake off the salt, and spread them in the sun for two days, or pack
them in boiled must without salt. Preserve sorbs in boiled must; or you may dry
them; make them quite free from moisture. Preserve pears in the same way.
VIII. Plant mariscan figs in chalky, open soil; the African, Herculanean, Sagun-
tine, the winter variety, the black Tellanian with long pedicles, in soil which is
richer or manured. Lay down a meadow, so that you may have a supply of hay – a
water meadow if you have it, if not, a dry meadow. Near a town it is well to have
a garden planted with all manner of vegetables, and all manner of flowers for gar-
lands – Megarian bulbs, conjugulan myrtle,^25 white and black myrtle, Delphian,
Cyprian, and wild laurel, smooth nuts, such as Abellan, Praenestine and Greek
filberts. The suburban farm, and especially if it be the only one, should be laid out
and planted as ingeniously as possible.