Ancient Latin Agricultural Writers, Vol. I

...with several materials along with the fruit: the vine is spurred on: to send out rootlets: the tendril proceeds, a germ from the scar, a shoot from the tender part: seeds come forth: a vine-sprout is created: the vine pours forth a germ from the graft, the number of vine-sprouts pours itself forth beyond measure: vines bud forth: they germinate, they bring themselves forward, the vines leap forth: elms bring forth their seed: tendrils creep out from everywhere: new stalks burst forth: a vine-sprout comes from the hard wood: the vine buds, sprouts: the vine grows again with new leaves. There are nearly forty formulas, all cultivated and neat, marking one and the same thing with a certain wonderful grace.

VII. Regarding the book inscribed On Trees, and indeed the entire plan of Columella, we have spoken in the preface of that book by Aldo [Manuzio], by the distinguished Pontedera, and finally by ourselves. Now we add this. We have said that Columella seemed to have first comprised the entire rural matter in three or four books, among the number of which was the one On Trees, the only one of its brothers surviving today. Now, if you suppose there were four, all surviving for some time, you will have, by counting the complete work which we still read, concluded in twelve books, those sixteen which Cassiodorus praises in Divine Readings, c. 28; which passage caused a scruple for the distinguished Fabricius. Columella seems to have lain hidden after Palladius, since farmers thought he was an accommodation to their own methods, for that reason, I believe, because both as the language declined more into barbarism, and he used that division into months. Certainly, Petrus Crescentius, who frequently uses Cato, Varro, and Palladius, nowhere that I remember mentions Columella. So much the more should one be grateful...