397There is also that other labour in tending vines, which is never done enough: for all the soil must every year be split three and four times, and the clods broken endlessly with the mattocks turned, and the whole grove lightened of its foliage. 401The farmers' labour returns, driven round in a circle, and the year rolls back on itself along its own tracks. 403And even when the vineyard has shed its late leaves, and the cold north wind has shaken their glory from the woods, even then the keen countryman extends his cares to the coming year, and pursues the vine left bare with Saturn's curved tooth, clipping it, and shapes it by pruning.
408Be the first to dig the ground, the first to burn the prunings carted away, and the first to bring the stakes back under cover; 410be the last to reap. 410Twice the shade crowds in upon the vines, twice the weeds cover the crop with thick briars; 412hard is each labour: praise huge estates, farm a small one. 413Besides, the rough twigs of butcher's broom are cut in the woods, and the river reed on the banks, and the care of the untended willow-bed keeps you busy. 416Now the vines are tied, now the trees lay by the pruning-hook, now the last vinedresser sings of his finished rows: yet the earth must be worried and the dust stirred, and Jupiter must be feared for the grapes now ripe.