. 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, therefo