ENQUIRY INTO PLANTS, VIII. n. 5-8 



Wherefore, at the time when some of the vetches 

 are gathered, the lower seeds have already fallen, 

 while the upper ones are still quite green. 



After the flowering is over wheat and barley 

 develop and mature in about forty days ; one-seeded 

 wheat and other such plants take about the same 

 time. So too, they say, does the bean, which blooms 

 and matures in a like number of days : but the 

 others take fewer, and fewest of all the chick-pea, 

 since, as some say, it takes only forty days from the 

 time when it is sown to that when it is mature ; and 

 in any case it is clear that the plant as a whole 

 develops very rapidly. Millet sesame Italian millet l 

 and the summer crops in general, it is fairly well 

 agreed, take the same number of days, that is, forty ; 

 though some say that they take less. 



Of differences in development due to soil or climate. 



2 Again as to the development of the plant there 

 are differences according to soil and climate. Some 

 soils seem to produce the crop in fewer days ; for 

 instance, Egypt may be given as a specially con- 

 spicuous example ; in that country barley is reaped 

 in six months and wheat in seven : while in Hellas 

 the barley 3 harvest is in the seventh month, or in 

 most parts in the eighth, and wheat requires an 

 even longer time. However even in Egypt the 

 whole harvest is not gathered at such an early date, 

 but only what is required for the first-fruits ; for they 

 gather new grain for the meal required in certain 

 sacrifices in the sixth month, and that too in the 

 regions high up the Nile, above Memphis. 



It is said also that in the Messeniari district in 



2 Plin. 18. 49. 8 KptOal conj. Sch.; irvpol UMAld. 



155 



