y a
wrapping. [22]

[18] Plat. "Prot." 311 B, 349 C; "Theaet." 157 C: "I cannot make out
whether you are giving your own opinion, or only wanting to draw
me out" (Jowett).

[19] For the advantage, see "Geopon." iii. 11. 2.

[20] Holden cf. Virg. "Georg." ii. 30--

quin et caudicibus sectis, mirabile dictu, truditur e sicco radix
oleagina ligno.

The stock in slices cut, and forth shall shoot, O passing strange! from
each dry slice a root (Holden).

See John Martyn ad loc.: "La Cerda says, that what the Poet here speaks
of was practised in Spain in his time. They take the trunk of an olive,
says he, deprive it of its root and branches, and cut it into several
pieces, which they put into the ground, whence a root and, soon
afterwards, a tree is formed." This mode of propagating by dry pieces
of the trunk (with bark on) is not to be confounded with that of
"truncheons" mentioned in "Georg." ii. 63.

[21] See Theophr. "H. Pl." ii. 2, 4; "de Caus." iii. 5. 1; "Geopon."
ix. 11. 4, ap. Hold.; Col. v. 9. 1; xi. 2. 42.

[22] Or, "covered up for protection."

Soc. Yes, all these things I see.

Isch. Granted, you see: what is there in the matter that you do not
understand? Perhaps you are ignorant how you are to lay the potsherd on
the clay at top?

Soc. No, in very sooth, not ignorant of that Ischomachus, or anything
you mentioned. That is just the puzzle, and again I beat my brains to
discover why, when you put to me that question a while back: "Had I, in
brief, the knowledge how to plant?" I answered, "No." Till then it never
would have struck me that I could say at all how planting must be done.
But no sooner do you begin to question me on each particular point
than I can answer you; and what is more, my answers are, you tell me,
accordant with the views of an authority [23] at once so skilful and so
celebrated as yourself. Really, Ischomachus, I am disposed to ask: "Does
teaching consist in putting questions?" [24] Indeed, the secret of your
system has just this instant dawned upon me. I seem to see the principle
in which you put your questions. You lead me through the field of my own
knowledge, [25] and then by pointing out analogies [26] to what I
know, persuade me that I really know some things which hitherto, as I
believed, I had no knowledge of.

[23] Or, "whose skill in farming is proverbial."

[24] Lit. "Is questioning after all a kind of teaching?" See Plat.
"Meno"; "Mem." IV.