52. QUID EGO ... COMMEMOREM: this and similar formulae for passing to a new
subject are common; cf. 53 _quid ego ... proferam_ etc.; often _nam_
precedes the _quid_, as in Lael. 104. The _ego_ has a slight emphasis. Cato
implies that his own devotion to grape-culture was so well known as not to
need description. -- ORTUS SATUS INCREMENTA: 'origin, cultivation, and
growth'. For the omission of the copula see n. on 53. -- UT: final, and
slightly elliptic ('I say this that etc.'); so in 6 (where see n.), 24, 56,
59, 82. -- REQUIETEM: the best MSS. of Cic. sometimes give the other form
_requiem_, as in Arch. 13. -- VIM IPSAM: 'the inherent energy'. -- OMNIUM
... TERRA: a common periphrasis for 'all plants'; cf. _e.g._ N.D. 2, 120.
The Latin has no one word to comprehend all vegetable products. -- QUAE ...
PROCREET: 'able to generate'. -- TANTULO: strictly elliptic, implying
_quantulum re vera est_. In such uses _tantus_ and _tantulus_ differ
slightly from _magnus_ and _parvus_; they are more emphatic. -- ACINI
VINACEO: 'a grape-stone'. -- MINUTISSIMIS: used here for _minimis_.
Strictly speaking _minutus_ ought to be used of things which are fragments
of larger things, _minutus_ being really the participle passive of _minuo_.
In a well-known passage (Orat. 94) Cic. himself calls attention to the
theoretical incorrectness of the use, which, however, is found throughout
Latin literature. Cf. 46 _pocula minuta_; also below, 85 _minuti
philosophi_. -- MALLEOLI: vine-cuttings; so called because a portion of the
parent stem was cut away with the new shoot, leaving the cutting in the
shape of a mallet. -- PLANTAE: 'suckers', shoots springing out of the
trunk. -- SARMENTA: 'scions', shoots cut from branches not from the trunk.
-- VIVIRADICES: 'quicksets', new plants formed by dividing the roots of the
mother plant. -- PROPAGINES: 'layers', new plants formed by rooting a shoot
in the earth without severing it from the parent plant; Verg. Georg. 2, 26.
-- EADEM: n. on 4 _eandem_. -- CLAVICULIS: cf. N.D. 2, 120 _vites sic
claviculis_. -- ARS AGRICOLARUM: _agricolae arte freti_, a strong instance
of the abstract put for the concrete.