I] GRAFTS AND CUTTINGS 89 



formerly to be grafted in spring, but are now 

 grafted at the summer solstice as well — the fig-tree, 

 for example, because of the looseness of its fibre and 

 its consequent need of warmth. Hence in a cold 

 district the impossibility of having plantations of 

 fig-trees. 



Rain ^ is harmful to the freshly-made graft, for it 



2 quickly rots the small and delicate shoot, so the , 

 best time for grafting them (fig-trees) is thought to 

 be when the Dog Star rises. Again in the case of 

 such plants as are of less soft a nature, they tie 

 immediately above the graft some kind of vessel, 

 from which water may drop slowly and prevent the 

 shoot withering before it unites with the tree. The 

 rind of the shoot must be kept intact, and in sharpen- 

 ing it for insertion care must be taken not to lay 

 bare the inner pulp. In order that the rains from 

 without or excessive heat may not hurt it, it is well 

 to smear the graft with clay and bind it up with a 



3 strip of bark. At the same time people cut a vine- 

 shoot three days before grafting it, that the super- 

 fluous moisture in it may run off before it is used, 

 or they make an incision in the tree, which is to 

 receive the shoot, a little below the point of insertion, 

 that the superabundant moisture may there escape. 

 On the other hand in the case of the fig-tree, pome- 



' Aqua recentt. Nearly the whole of this chapter is taken 

 from Theophrastus (Caus. Plant., i, 6). But the latter dis- 

 tinguishes between grafting and "budding " (^vo0OaXt(r/ioc), and 

 it is to budding, according to him, that moisture is hostile 

 lo i' \}Cutp Tif> fiiv iVotpOaXiafnli TroKifiiov r.r.X. 



