Chap. 9.] PALM-TREES. 1 73 



is sometimes laid level, and then covered over in a moist soil ; 

 upon which it will throw out roots all over, but it will grow 

 only to be a number of shrubs, and never a tree : hence it is 

 that they plant nurseries, and transplant the young trees when 

 a year old, and again when two years old, as they thrive all 

 the better for being transplanted ; this is done in the spring 

 season in other countries, but in Assyria about the rising of the 

 Dog-star. Tn those parts they do not touch the young trees 

 with the knife, but merely tie up the foliage that they may 

 shoot upwards, and so attain considerable height. When 

 they are strong they prune them, in order to increase their 

 thickness, but in so doing leave the branches for about half a 

 foot ; indeed, if they were cut off at any other place, the ope- 

 ration would kill the parent tree. We have already 25 men- 

 tioned that they thrive particularly well in a saltish soil; 

 hence, when the soil is not of that nature, it is the custom to 

 scatter salt, not exactly about the roots, but at a little distance 

 off. There are palm-trees in Syria and in Egypt which divide 

 into two trunks, and some in Crete into three and as many as 

 five even. 26 Some of these trees bear immediately at the end of 

 three years, and in Cyprus, Syria, and Egypt, when they are 

 four years old ; others again at the end of hve years : at which 

 period the tree is about the height of a man. So long as the 

 tree is quite young the fruit has no seed within, from which 

 circumstance it has received the nickname of the " eunuch."" 



CHAP. 9. — THE DIFFERENT VARIETIES OF PALM-TREES, AND THEIR 



CHARACTERISTICS. 



There are numerous varieties of the palm-tree. In Assyria, 

 and throughout the whole of Persis, the barren kinds are made 

 use of for carpenters' work, and the various appliances of 

 luxury. There are whole forests also of palm-trees adapted 

 for cutting, 28 and which, after they are cut, shoot again from 



25 In c. 7 of the present Book. See also B. xvii. c. 3. 



26 Fee mentions one near Elvas in Spain, which shot up into seven distinct 

 trees, as it were, from a single trunk. The Douma Thebaica, he says, of 

 Syria and Egypt, a peculiar kind of palm, is also bifurcated. The fruit 

 of it, he thinks, are very probably the Phaenico-balanus of B. xii. c. 47. 



2 7 " Spado." Represented by the Greek evvovxog and ivopxoQ. 



2 § " Caeduse " Though this is the fact as to some palm-trees, the greater 

 part perish after being cut ; the vital bud occupying the summit, and the 

 trunk not being susceptible of any increase. 



