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..."