ore appearances are considered the greater will be
the profit, as, for instance, orchards should be planted in straight
lines arranged in quincunxes and at a reasonable distance apart. It
is a fact that, because of their unintelligent plan of planting, our
ancestors made less wine and corn to the acre than we do. The point is
that if each plant is set with due reference to the others they occupy
less land and are less likely to screen from one another the influence
of the sun and the moon and the air. This may be illustrated by an
experiment: you can press a parcel of nuts with their shells on into a
measure having only two thirds of the capacity of what is required to
contain them after they have been cracked, because the shells keep
them naturally compacted. When trees are planted in rows the sun and
the moon have access to them equally from all sides, with the result
that more raisins and olives are developed and then mature more
quickly, a double result with the double consequence of a larger crop
of must and oil and a greater profit."

_How character of soil affects agriculture_

"We will now take up the second consideration in respect of the
physical characteristics of a farm, namely: the quality of the soil,
which partly, if not entirely, determines whether it is considered a
good or a bad farm: for on this depends what crops can be planted and
harvested and how they should be cultivated, as it is not possible
to plant everything successfully on the same soil. For one soil is
suitable for vines, another for corn, and others for other things. In
the island of Crete, near Cortynia, there is said to be a plane tree
which does not lose its leaves even in winter--a phenomenon due
doubtless to the quality of the soil. There is another of the same
kind in Cyprus, according to Theophrastus. Likewise within sight of
the city of Sybaris (which is now called Thurii) stands an oak having
the same characteristic. Again at Elephantine neither the vines nor
the fig trees lose their leaves, something that never happens with
us. For the same reason many trees bear fruit twice a year, as do
the vines near the sea at Smyrna, and the apples in the fields of
Consentinium. The effect of soil appears also from the fact that those
plants which bear most profusely in wild places produce better fruit
under cultivation. The same explanation applies to those plants which
cannot live except in a marshy place, or indeed in the very water: