460 plint's natural history. [Book XVII. 



manure should be. laid upon the land while 16 the west winds 

 prevail, and during a dry moon. Most persons, however, mis- 

 understand this precept, and think this should be done when 

 the west winds are just beginning to blow, and in the month 

 of February only ; it being really the fact that most crops 

 require manuring in other months as well. At whatever 

 period, however, it may be thought proper to manure the 

 land, the greatest care should be taken that the wind is blow- 

 ing due west at the time, and that the moon is on the wane, 

 and quite dry. Such precautions as these will increase in a 

 most surprising degree the fertilizing effects of manure. 



CHAP. 9,. (10.) — THE MODES I1ST WHICH TREES BEAR. 



Having now treated at sufficient length of the requisite con- 

 ditions of the weather and the soil, we shall proceed to speak 

 of those trees which are the result of the care and inventive 

 skill of man. Indeed, the varieties of them are hardly less 

 numerous than of those which are produced by Nature, 17 so 

 abundantly have we testified our gratitude in return for her 

 numerous bounties. For these trees, we find, are reared either 

 from seed, or else by transplanting, by layers, by slips torn from 

 the stock, by cuttings, by grafting, or by cutting into the trunk 

 of the tree. But as to the story that the leaves of the palm 

 are planted by the Babylonians, and so give birth 18 to a tree, 

 I am really surprised that Trogus should have ever believed 

 it. Some of the trees are reproduced by several of the me- 

 thods above enumerated, others, again, by all of them. 



CHAP. 10. PLANTS WHICH ARE PROPAGATED BY SEED. 



It is Nature herself that has taught us most of these me- 

 thods, and more particularly that of sowing seed, as it was 

 very soon evident how the seed on falling to the ground revived 



16 I. e. in the early part of spring. In modern times, the period for 

 manuring varies, according to the usage of different localities, heing prac- 

 tised in all the four seasons of the year, according to the crops, weather, 

 and climate. 17 See B. xvi. c. 58. 



18 The palm is grown in Africa from shoots thrown out from the axillae 

 of the leaves ; and it is in this circumstance, Fee thinks, that the story told 

 by Trogus must have originated. Some of the ferns throw out adventitious 

 buds from the summit of the leaf, and the orange tree and some others 

 occasionally have them at the base of the leaf. 



