[16] Or, "the same chaff (i.e. unwinnowed corn, Angl. corn) twice."
Isch. Really, Socrates, you are fully competent yourself, it seems, to teach an ignorant world[17] the speediest mode of winnowing.
[17] Lit. "After all, Socrates, it seems you could even teach another how to purge his corn most expeditiously."
Soc. It seems, then, as you say, I must have known about these matters, though unconsciously; and here I stand and beat my brains,[18] reflecting whether or not I may not know some other things --how to refine gold and play the flute and paint pictures--without being conscious of the fact. Certainly, as far as teaching goes, no one ever taught me these, no more than husbandry; while, as to using my own eyes, I have watched men working at the other arts no less than I have watched them till the soil.
[18] Lit. "all this while, I am thinking whether . . ."
Isch. Did I not tell you long ago that of all arts husbandry was the noblest, the most generous, just because it is the easiest to learn?
Soc. That it is without a doubt, Ischomachus. It seems I must have known the processes of sowing, without being conscious of my knowledge.[19]
[19] Or, "but for all my science, I was ignorant (of knowing my own knowledge)."
XIX
Soc. (continuing). But may I ask, is the planting of trees[1] a department in the art of husbandry?
[1] i.e. of fruit trees, the vine, olive, fig, etc.
Isch. Certainly it is.
Soc. How is it, then, that I can know about the processes of sowing and at the same time have no knowledge about planting?
Isch. Is it so certain that you have no knowledge?
Soc. How can you ask me? when I neither know the sort of soil in which to plant, nor yet the depth of hole[2] the plant requires, nor the breadth, or length of ground in which it needs to be embedded;[3] nor lastly, how to lay the plant in earth, with any hope of fostering its growth.[4]
[2] Reading {to phuto}, "nor yet how deep or broad to sink (the hole) for the plant." Holden (ed. 1886) supplies {bothunon}. Al. {bothron}.
[3] See Loudon, "Encycl. of Agric." S. 407, ap. Holden: "In France plantations of the vine are made by dibbling in cuttings of two feet of length; pressing the earth firmly to their lower end, an essential part of the operation, noticed even by Xenophon."
[4] Lit. "how, laid in the soil, the plant will best shoot forth or grow."
Isch. Come, then, to lessons, pupil, and be taught whatever you do not know already! You have seen, I know, the sort of trenches which are dug for plants?
Soc. Hundreds of times.
Isch. Did you ever see one more than three feet deep?
Soc. No, I do not think I ever saw one more than two and a half feet deep.
Isch. Well, as to the breadth now. Did you ever see a trench more than three feet broad?[5]
[5] Or, "width," "wide." The commentators cf. Plin. "H. N." xvii. 11, 16, 22; Columell. v. 5. 2; ib. iii. 15. 2; Virg. "Georg." ii. 288.
Soc. No, upon my word, not even more than two feet broad.
Isch. Good! now answer me this question: Did you ever see a trench less than one foot deep?
Soc. No, indeed! nor even less than one foot and a half. Why, the plants would be no sooner buried than dug out again, if planted so extremely near the surface.
Isch. Here, then, is one matter, Socrates, which you know as well as any one.[6] The trench is not to be sunk deeper than two feet and a half, or shallower than one foot and a half.
[6] Lit. "quite adequately."
Soc. Obviously, a thing so plain appeals to the eye at once.
Isch. Can you by eyesight recognise the difference between a dry soil and a moist?
Soc. I should certainly select as dry the soil round Lycabettus,[7] and any that resembles it; and as moist, the soil in the marsh meadows of Phalerum,[8] or the like.
[7] See Leake, "Topog. of Athens," i. 209.
[8] Or, "the Phaleric marsh-land." See Leake, ib. 231, 427; ii. 9.
Isch. In planting, would you dig (what I may call) deep trenches in a dry soil or a moist?
Soc. In a dry soil certainly; at any rate, if you set about to dig deep trenches in the moist you will come to water, and there and then an end to further planting.
Isch. You could not put it better. We will suppose, then, the trenches have been dug. Does your eyesight take you further?[9] Have you noticed at what season in either case[10] the plants must be embedded?
[9] Lit. "As soon as the trenches have been dug then, have you further noticed . . ."
[10] (1) The vulg. reading {openika . . . ekatera} = "at what precise time . . . either (i.e. 'the two different' kinds of) plant," i.e. "vine and olive" or "vine and fig," I suppose; (2) Breit. emend. {opotera . . . en ekatera} = "which kind of plant . . . in either soil . . ."; (3) Schenkl. etc., {openika . . . en ekatera} = "at what season . . . in each of the two sorts of soil . . ."
Soc. Certainly.[11]
[11] There is an obvious lacuna either before or after this remark, or at both places.
Isch. Supposing, then, you wish the plants to grow as fast as possible: how will the cutting strike and sprout, do you suppose, most readily?--after you have laid a layer of soil already worked beneath it, and it merely has to penetrate soft mould? or when it has to force its way through unbroken soil into the solid ground?
Soc. Clearly it will shoot through soil which has been worked more quickly than through unworked soil.
Isch. Well then, a bed of earth must be laid beneath the plant?
Soc. I quite agree; so let it be.
Isch. And how do you expect your cutting to root best?--if set straight up from end to end, pointing to the sky?[12] or if you set it slantwise under its earthy covering, so as to lie like an inverted gamma?[13]
[12] Lit. "if you set the whole cutting straight up, facing heavenwards."
[13] i.e. Anglice, "like the letter {G} upon its back" {an inverted "upper-case" gamma looks like an L}. See Lord Bacon, "Nat. Hist." Cent. v. 426: "When you would have many new roots of fruit-trees, take a low tree and bow it and lay all his branches aflat upon the ground and cast earth upon them; and every twig will take root. And this is a very profitable experiment for costly trees (for the boughs will make stock without charge), such as are apricots, peaches, almonds, cornelians, mulberries, figs, etc. The like is continually practised with vines, roses, musk roses, etc."
Soc. Like an inverted gamma, to be sure, for so the plant must needs have more eyes under ground. Now it is from these same eyes of theirs, if I may trust my own,[14] that plants put forth their shoots above ground. I imagine, therefore, the eyes still underground will do the same precisely, and with so many buds all springing under earth, the plant itself, I argue, as a whole will sprout and shoot and push its way with speed and vigour.
[14] Lit. "it is from their eyes, I see, that plants . . ."
Isch. I may tell you that on these points, too, your judgment tallies with my own. But now, should you content yourself with merely heaping up the earth, or will you press it firmly round your plant?
Soc. I should certainly press down the earth; for if the earth is not pressed down, I know full well that at one time under the influence of rain the unpressed soil will turn to clay or mud; at another, under the influence of the sun, it will turn to sand or dust to the very bottom: so that the poor plant runs a risk of being first rotted with moisture by the rain, and next of being shrivelled up with drought through overheating of the roots.[15]
[15] Through "there being too much bottom heat." Holden (ed. 1886).
Isch. So far as the planting of vines is concerned, it appears, Socrates, that you and I again hold views precisely similar.
And does this method of planting apply also to the fig-tree? (I inquired).
Isch. Surely, and not to the fig-tree alone, but to all the rest of fruit-trees.[16] What reason indeed would there be for rejecting in the case of other plant-growths[17] what is found to answer so well with the vine?