Citrons were likewise occasionally grafted on the pomegranate-tree. In the present day, the almond, the chestnut, the fig, the orange, and the citron, with many other species of fruit-trees, are no longer thought to require grafting.[[1384]]
In illustration of the prolific virtue of the Hellenic soil it may be mentioned, that young branchless pear-trees, transplanted from Malta to the neighbourhood of Athens, in the autumn of 1830, were the next year covered thick with fruit, which hung even upon the trunk like hanks of onions.[[1385]]
Notwithstanding the early season of the year at which Gaia distributes her gifts in Greece, numerous arts were resorted to for anticipating the productions of summer,[[1386]] though of most of them the nature is unknown. It is certain, however, that they possessed the means of ripening fruits throughout the winter, either by hothouses or other contrivances equally efficacious.[[1387]] During the festival celebrated in honour of the lover of Aphrodite, the seeds of flowers were sown in those silver pots, or baskets, called the gardens of Adonis,[[1388]] and with artificial heat and constant irrigation compelled to bloom in eight days. Among the modern Hindus corn is still forced to spring up in a few days, by a similar process, during the festival of Gouri.[[1389]] To produce rathe figs,[[1390]] a manure, composed of dove’s dung and pepper and oil, was laid about the roots of the tree. Another method was that which is still employed under the name of caprification, alluded to by Sophocles.[[1391]] For this purpose care was taken to rear, close at hand, several wild fig-trees, from which might be obtained the flies made use of in this process,[[1392]] performed by cutting off bunches of wild figs and suspending them amid the branches of the cultivated species,[[1393]] when a fly issuing from the former pricked the slowly ripening fruit and accelerated its maturity.[[1394]] In growing the various kinds of fig they were careful to plant the Chelidonian, the Erinean, or wild fig, the Leukerinean, and the Phibaleian[[1395]] on plains. The autumn-royals would grow anywhere. Each sort has its peculiar excellence. The following were the best: the colouroi, or truncated, the forminion, the diforoi, the Megaric, and the Laconian, which would bear abundantly if well-watered.[[1396]] Rhodes was famous for its excellent figs, which were even thought worthy to be compared with those of Attica.[[1397]] Athenæus, however, pretends that the best figs in the world were found at Rome. There were figs with a ruddy bloom in the island of Paros, the same in kind as the Lydian fig.[[1398]] The Leukerinean produced the white fig.[[1399]]
The fancy of Hellenic gardeners amused itself with effecting numerous fantastic changes in the appearance and nature of fruit. Thus citrons, lemons, &c., were made, by the application of a clay mould, to assume the form of the human face, of birds and other animals.[[1400]] Occasionally, too, they were introduced, when small, into the neck of a bottle provided with breathing holes, the figure of which they assumed as they projected their growth into all its dimensions. We are assured, moreover, that, by a very simple process, they could produce peaches, almonds,[[1401]] &c., covered, as though by magic, with written characters. The mode of operation was this,—steeping the stone of the fruit in water for several days, they then carefully divided it, and taking out the kernel inscribed upon it with a brazen pen whatever words or letters they thought proper. This done, they again closed the stone over the kernel, bound it round with papyrus, and planted it; and the peaches or almonds which afterwards grew on that tree bore every one of them, mirabile dictu! the legend inscribed upon the kernel. By similar arts[[1402]] they created stoneless peaches, walnuts without husks, figs white one side, and black the other, and converted bitter almonds into sweet.[[1403]]
The rules observed in the planting of fruit-trees were numerous.[[1404]] Some, they were of opinion, were best propagated by seed, others by suckers wrenched from the root of the parent stock,[[1405]] others, again, by branches selected from among the new wood on the topmost boughs. A rude practice, too, common enough in our own rural districts, appears to have been in much favour among them,—bending some long pendant bough to the ground, they covered a part of it with heavy clods, allowing, however, the extremity to appear above the earth. When it had taken root it was severed from the tree and transplanted to some proper situation. At other times, the points of boughs were drawn down and fixed in the ground, which even thus took root, and sent the juices backwards, after which the bough was cut off and a new stock produced. Trees generated by this method, as well as those planted during the waning moon,[[1406]] were supposed to spread and grow branchy, while those set during the waxing moon attained, though weaker, to a much greater height. It ought, perhaps, to be further added, that all seeds and plants were put into the ground while the moon was below the horizon.[[1407]] Those trees which it was customary to renew by seed were the pistachio, the filbert, the almond, the chestnut, the white peach, the damascene, the pine-tree, and the edible pine, the palm, the cypress, the laurel, the ash, the maple, and the fig. The apple,[[1408]] the cherry, the rhamnus jujuba, the common nut, the dwarf laurel, the myrtle, and the medlar, were propagated by suckers; while the quicker and surer mode of raising trees from boughs was frequently adopted in the case of the almond, the pear, the mulberry, the citron,[[1409]] the apple, the olive, the quince,[[1410]] the black and white poplar, the ivy, the jujube-tree, the myrtle, the chestnut, the vine, the willow, the box, and the cytisus.
But the thrifty people of Hellas seldom devoted the orchard-ground entirely to fruit-trees. The custom seems to have been to lay out the whole in beds and borders for the cultivation of vegetables, and to plant trees, at intervals, along the edges and at the corners. These beds, moreover, were often, as with us, edged with parsley and rue; whence the proverb,—“You have not proceeded beyond the rue,” for “You know nothing of the matter.”[[1411]]
The rustics of antiquity, who put generally great faith in spells and talismans, possessed an extraordinary charm for ensuring unfailing fertility to their gardens; they buried an ass’s head deep in the middle of them, and sprinkled the ground with the juice of fenugreek and lotus.[[1412]] Somewhat greater efficacy, however, may be attributed to their laborious methods of manuring and irrigation.[[1413]]
The aspect of such a garden differed very little, except perhaps in luxuriance, from a similar plot of ground in Kent or Middlesex. Here you perceived beds of turnips, or cabbages, or onions; there, lettuces, or endive, or succory,[[1414]] in the process of blanching, or the delicate heads of asparagus, or broad-beans, or lentils, or peas, or kidney-beans, or artichokes. In the most sunny spots were ranges of boxes or baskets for forcing cucumbers.[[1415]] Near the brooks, where such existed, were patches of watermelons,[[1416]] the finest in the world; and here and there, clasping round the trunks of trees,[[1417]] and, suspending its huge leaves and spheres from among the branches, you might behold the gourd,[[1418]] as I have often seen it in the palm-groves of Nubia. It may be added, that the pumpkin, or common gourd, was eaten by the Greeks,[[1419]] as it is still in France and Asia Minor.[[1420]]
Lettuces[[1421]] were blanched by being tied a-top, or being buried up to a certain point in sand.[[1422]] They were, moreover, supposed to be rendered more rich and delicate by being watered with a mixture of wine and honey, as was the practice of the gourmand Aristoxenos, who having done so over-night, used next morning to cut them, and say they were so many green cakes sent him by mother Earth.[[1423]]
The Greek gardeners appear to have delighted exceedingly in the production of monstrous vegetables. Thus, in the case of the cucumber, their principal object appears to have been to produce it without seed, or of some extraordinary shape.[[1424]] In the first case they diligently watched the appearance of the plant above ground, and then covering it over with fresh earth, and repeating the same operation three times, the cucumbers it bore were found to be seedless. The same effect was produced by steeping the seeds in sesamum-oil for three days before they were sown. They were made to grow to a great length by having vessels of water[[1425]] placed daily within a few inches of their points, which, exciting by attraction a sort of nisus in the fruit, drew them forward as far as the gardener thought necessary.[[1426]] They were made, likewise, to assume all sorts of forms by the use of light, fictile moulds,[[1427]] as in the case of the citron. Another method was, to take a large reed,[[1428]] split it, and clear out the pith; then introducing the young cucumber into the hollow, the sections of the reed were bound together, and the fruit projected itself through the tube until it acquired an enormous length. It is observed by Theophrastus, that if you steep the seeds of cucumbers in milk, or an infusion of honey, it will improve their flavour.[[1429]] They were, moreover, believed to expand in size at the full of the moon, like the sea-hedgehog.[[1430]] A fragrant smell was supposed to be communicated to melons[[1431]] by constantly keeping the seed in dry rose-leaves. To preserve the seed for any length of time, it was sprinkled with the juice of house-leek.