I] SOWING, PLANTING, GRAFTING 85 



before they were planted. With regard to the 

 original seeds we must be careful that they have not 

 lost their virtue through age, that they are not 

 mixed with others, and that they are not the wrong 

 ones through resemblance to another sort. The 

 cflfect of age on some things is so great as to change 

 their nature ; for from old cabbage seed, they say, 

 springs rape, and conversely from rape seed cab- 

 bages. 



3 In propagating by the second ' means one must be 

 careful to do so neither too early nor too late. The 

 proper seasons, according to Theophrastus,^ are 

 spring, autumn, and the rising of the Dog Star, 

 though this does not apply to every soil and every 

 kind of plant. In dry, poor, clayey soils, since they 

 have the least moisture, spring should be chosen ; 

 whereas in the case of good and rich land autumn is 

 the best time, for in spring there is much wet. Some 

 people fix about thirty days as the time within 

 which each sowing should be made. 



4 The third kind of germ, which is transmitted 

 from the tree to the earth by means of shoots, if 

 planted in the soil, needs care in some instances 

 that the severance from the parent tree be made at 

 the proper time — that is before any flowers or buds 

 appear— and that whatever shoots you transplant be, 

 torn ' from the stock rather than broken off, for the ^ 



' Secunda setnina. Cf. xxxix, 3. 

 * Theophrastus. Cf. Causa Plant., i, 7. 

 Ut ea deplantes potiusquam defringas. The commentators 

 give little help as to the meaning of deplantare. But I feel 



