BOOK XV. XXV. 94-xxvii. 97 



dealing with grafting,the Etereian, which its red skin 

 renders more popular than the three-cornered chest- 

 nut and the comnion black ones called cooking chest- 

 nuts. The most highly commended chestnuts come 

 from Taranto, and in Campania from Naples ; all the 

 other kinds are grown for pig-food ; the pigs carefully 

 chew up the shells as well, together with the kernels. 



XXVI. Also the extremely sweet carob may be Carob. 

 thought to be not far remote from the chestnut, 

 except that in the case of the carob the husk itself 

 is eaten. It is not longer than a man's finger, and 

 occasionally curved Uke a sickle, and it has the 

 thickness of a man's thumb. Acorns cannot be 

 counted among fruits, and consequently they will 

 be dealt with among trees of their own kind. 



XX\TI. The remaining fruits belong to the fleshy softfruUs. 

 class, and they diifer in their shape and in their flesh. 

 Berries ^ have one kind of flesh, the mulberry another, 

 the strawberry-tree another ; and the grape, etc, 

 have a substance between skin and juice diiferent 

 from that of the myxa plum and from that of berries 

 such as the ohve. The flesh of the mulberry contains iiuibeny. 

 a vinous juice, and the fruit has three successive 

 colours, first white, then red, and when ripe black. 

 The mulberry is one of the latest trees to blossom, 

 but among the first to ripen. The juice of ripe 

 mulberries stains the hand, but the stain can be 

 washcd out with the juice of unripe ones. In the 

 case of this tree the devices of the growers have made 

 the least improvement of any, and the mulberry 

 of Ostia and that of Tivoh do not differ from that of 

 Rome by named varieties or by grafting or in any 

 other way except in the size of the fruit. A similar 

 but much firmer berry ^ also grows on brambles. 



355 



