ENQUIRY INTO PLANTS, VIII. xi. 1-3 



and mature very quickly, and keep excellently, as 

 Italian millet and millet. Some germinate well, 1 

 but soon rot, 2 as beans, and especially those that are 

 ' cookable 3 ' ; so do tare and calavance ; also barley 

 perishes sooner 4 than wheat ; and dusty 5 grain and 

 that which is kept in plastered store-rooms perishes 

 sooner than that which is kept in unplastered rooms. 



Again, as seeds decay, 6 they engender special 

 creatures, except chick-pea, which alone engenders 

 none. As they rot, 7 all produce a grub ; but, as 

 they get worm-eaten, each produces a special 

 creature. Chick-pea and vetch keep best of all, and 

 better still than these lupin ; but this, as it were, is 

 like a wild kind. 8 



9 It appears that soil and climate make a difference 

 as to whether the seed gets worm-eaten or not ; 

 at least they say that at Apollonia on the Ionian Sea 

 beans do not get eaten in this way at all, and there- 

 fore they are put away and stored ; and about 

 Cyzicus they keep an even longer time. It also 

 makes a great difference to keeping that the seed 

 should be gathered dry, for then there is less 

 moisture in it. 10 However the seeds of leguminous 

 plants are gathered with a certain amount of 

 moisture in them, 11 because then they can be collected 

 in greater quantity and more easily ; for otherwise 

 they are soon shed and get shrivelled up and split 12 ; 



7 i.e. rot is produced in all cases by the same creature 

 (<rKc6\rj), but the condition called being 'worm-eaten' is due 

 in each plant to a different pest. 



8 i.e. and so the seed is hard and not liable to these attacks, 

 c/. 8. 11. 8; G.P. 4. 16. 2. 



9 cf. G.P. 4. 16. 2. 10 i.e. liability to rot. 



11 eyxv\6repa conj. Sch.; euxv^drepa Aid. H. Cam. ; euxr/A^Tcpa 

 Bas. cf. C.P. 4. 13. 3. ia Plin. 18. 125. 



207 



