ENQUIRY INTO PLANTS, II. vi. 3-5 



given, after manuring, as the Rhodians use. This 

 then is matter for enquiry ; it may be that there are 

 two distinct methods of cultivation, and that dung, 

 if accompanied by watering,^ is beneficial, though 

 without it it is harmful. - When the tree is a year 

 old, they transplant it and give plenty ^ of salt, and 

 this treatment is repeated when it is two years old, 

 for it delights greatly in being transplanted. 



* Most transplant in the spring, but the people of 

 Babylon about the rising of the dog-star, and this is 

 the time when most people propagate it, since it 

 then germinates and grows more quickly. As long 

 as it is young, they do not touch it, except that they 

 tie up the foliage, so that it may grow straight ^ and 

 the slender branches may not hang down." At a 

 later stage they prune it, when it is more vigorous 

 and has become a stout tree, leaving the slender 

 branches only about a handsbreadth long. So long 

 as it is young, it produces its fruit without a stone, 

 but later on the fruit has a stone. 



However some say that the people of Syria use no 

 cultivation, except cutting out wood and watering, also 

 that the date-palm requires spring water rather than 

 water from the skies ; and that such water is abundant 

 in the valley in which are the palm-groves. And 

 they add that the Syrians say that this vallev '' 

 extends through Arabia to the Red Sea,^ and that 

 many profess to have visited it,^ and that it is in the 

 lowest part of it that the date-palms grow. Now 

 both accounts may be true, for it is not strange that 



' 6p0o(pvri t' p conj. W. ; 6pBo<piriTai PqAM. 



* airapTuvTai conj. R. Const.; aTopOwyrai P.,MAld. 



* cf. Diod. 3. 41. 



* i.e. the Arabian Gulf. 



* i\Ti\v64yai Aid. ; SifKriKv94yai conj. W. 



137 



