Food Sources: Earth, Water, and Air - Food Culture and Health in Pre-Modern Islamic Societies - page 29

for us the names of various kinds of vines.
The vegetative cycle of each vine-plant
being different, the agronomists, applying
the principle of the complementary nature
of a defect and a quality (such as adapta-
tion to dryness or humidity, etc.) mainly
made use of the diversities of the climates
and soils of the Mediterranean zone and
the Near East.
Some systems of cultivation predomi-
nate in the Andalusian treatises: (a) The
low vine, planted in holes or trenches
(recommended, but little practised)
about 1.40 m. apart, supported or in low
clumps, thinned out very little in order
to protect the grape against the sun: a
method of cultivation reserved for warm
sites; (b) The climbing vine, classical in
the Mediterranean region, where the
creeper was used as support for the fruit
trees with shallow roots, whose height had
to be controlled so that they did not injure
the vine; in contradiction to the ancients,
the Andalusians rejected the intercalary
cultivation that exhausts the vine, and
especially the association of the vine and
the fig-tree. The best soils were alluvial,
humid, but not saturated, according to
the westerners, and also sandy accord-
ing to Ibn Wasiyya, but one might also
make use of the rich soils for the species
that derive nourishment easily; the prin-
ciple of complementarity took the place
of the modern idea of forced cultivation.
The choice of sites was adapted to the
vines' wants; slopes and hillsides for the
low vines, valleys and plains for the climb-
ing ones, mountains in order to test the
quality of a vineplant; it was banned from
the marshlands, sources of the vine's dis-
eases. The preparatory work was a deep
tillage with the spade, with trenches larger
than the furrows of tillage in the earth of
mediocre quality and holes for the good
localities with a depth of at least 2 cubits
(almost a metre) for protection against the

sun. The surface work of the end of the
first year was a loosening with the pruning
knife to spare the roots, those nearest to
the surface meanwhile being cut back to
strengthen the deepest.
Reproduction in the nurseries was
done in the form of taking cuttings, lay-
ering ( takbīs ) and sowing in a manner
conforming to the practices of our days.
The stratification was systematic. As for
the shoots, cuttings and layered branches,
it is often pointed out that they should
not be planted together in the same hole,
which proves that it was done. Most
authors agree in recommending planting
in spring, although the early species might
be planted in autumn (hesitations that one
would still encounter today); the Egyptian
fiscal treatises speak of planting in Febru-
ary or March. The vinestocks, once tested
for three years in very poor soil, they were
transplanted in the vineyard chosen to
receive them.
Well spread out fertilization was espe-
cially necessary in the planting and prun-
ing, above all when vines were made to
follow another vegetable insufficiently
treated with animal manure, usual in the
Middle Ages; it was reduced to a powder,
and, according to an Aristotelian prin-
ciple, the ashes of the stems of the plant
itself were preferred; this preference for
dry fertilizer is a particularly modern
aspect of Andalusian viticulture. Irriga-
tion depended on the climate, the soil and
the plant chosen; watering by hand was
frequently carried out in order to propor-
tion better the quantity of water needed
to obtain really syrupy and not-too-full
grapes.
Among the measures taken to increase
the vine's productivity, pruning ( zabr ) was
the principle practised in winter with the
iron pruning knife ( min ¡ al ) already de-
scribed by Columella; the aim was to draw
the sap towards the best developed wood.