BOOK XV. XXX. 104-XXX11. 108 



fruits to repay its yearly gratitude to the farmer. 

 It likes a north aspect and cold conditions ; moreover 

 it can be dried in the sun and stored in casks Hke 

 oHves. XXXI. The same amount of care is also Comfiand 

 bestoMed on the cornel, and evcn on the lentisk. So ''"'"•*'''• 

 that nothing may not appear to have come into 

 existence for the sake of man's appetite, flavours are 

 blended and different ones are forced to gratify 

 different persons ; indeed even the regions of the 

 earth and of the sky are blended : in one kind of food 

 the aid of India is invoked, in another that of Egypt, 

 Crete, Cyrene and every land in turn. Nor does our 

 regimen stick at poisons, if only it may devour every- 

 thing. This wiU become clearer whcn we come to the 

 nature of herbaceous plants. 



XXXII. In the meantime we fmd that there are Varietiesof 

 ten kinds of flavours that belong in common to the fSTandof 

 fruits andtoalltheir juices; sweet, luscious,unctuous, other objecu). 

 bitter, rough, acrid, sharp, harsh, acid and salt. 

 Beside these there are three other flavours of a par- 

 ticularly remarkable nature : (1) one in which several 

 tastes are discerned simultaneously, as in wines — 

 for they contain both a rough and a sharp and a sweet 

 and a luscious taste, aU of them different from each 

 other ; (2) another kind is that which contains both 

 the flavour of something else and one that is its own 

 and pecuHar to itself, for instance milk — inasmuch as 

 milk contains a something which nevertheless cannot 

 rightly be caUed sweet or unctuous or luscious, being 

 possessed by a smoothness which of itself takes the 

 place of a flavour ; (3) water has no flavour at aU 

 and no flavouring constituent, yet stiU this very 

 fact gives it some taste and mnkes it form a class 

 of its own : at aU events for water to have any per- 



361 



