With all this not ill-founded complaint of these our active companions,
my constant wonder is, that the grapes hang untouched this 20th of
September, in vast heavy clusters covered with bloom; and unmolested by
insects, which, with a quarter of this heat in England, are encouraged
to destroy all our fruit in spite of the gardener's diligence to blow up
nests, cover the walls with netting, and hang them about with bottles of
syrup, to court the creatures in, who otherwise so damage every fig and
grape and plum of ours, that nothing but the skins are left remaining
_by now. Here_ no such contrivances are either wanted or thought on;
and while our islanders are sedulously bent to guard, and studious to
invent new devices to protect their half dozen peaches from their half
dozen wasps, the standard trees of Italy are loaded with high-flavoured
and delicious fruits.
Here figs sky-dy'd a purple hue disclose,
Green looks the olive, the pomegranate glows;
Here dangling pears exalted scents unfold,
And yellow apples ripen into gold.
The roadside is indeed hedged with festoons of vines, crawling from
olive to olive, which they plant in the ditches of Tuscany as we do
willows in Britain: mulberry trees too by the thousand, and some
pollarded poplars serve for support to the glorious grapes that will now
soon be gathered.
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