28 VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



owing to their shells being compactly arranged 

 by nature, when once broken up could scarcely 

 be packed into a peck-and-a-half measure. More- 



4 over, trees which have been planted in orderly 

 fashion, get the sun and moon uniformly from all 

 sides; the result being more grapes and olives and 

 earlier ripening — a double result which necessarily 

 leads to the two others — more grape-juice and oil, 

 and more profit. 



5 Now follows the second point mentioned : the 

 nature of the soil on a farm. And it is to this that 

 we generally allude when we speak of a farm as 

 good or bad. For the number and nature of the 

 things that can be sown and grown upon it is of 

 importance, the same soil not being equally suit- 

 able for all kinds of produce, but one for vines, 

 another for corn, and so forth, different soils suiting 



6 different things. Thus in Crete, in the neighbour- 

 hood of Gortynia, there is, we are told, a plane- 

 tree which does not shed its leaves in winter; one 

 also in Cyprus, as Theophrastus remarks; and at 

 Sybaris, now called Thurii, there is an oak within 

 sight of the town which has the same peculiarity. 

 The parts about Elephantine, also, show a marked 

 contrastwith Italy, in that neither figs nor vines there 

 shed their leaves at all. Owing to the same cause 

 many trees bear twice ; for example the vines near 

 the sea at Smyrna, and the apple-trees in the Con- 



7 sentine country. Another example of the same 

 fact is that while in unreclaimed land trees bear 

 more abundantly, in that which is cultivated the 



