Castanea inseritur in se, et in salice, sed ex salice tardius maturat, et fit asperior in sapore. Pallad. xii. 7. 22. Cf. Virg. Georg. ii. 71. Plutarch speaks of certain gardens on the banks of the Cephissos, in Bœotia, in which he beheld pears growing on an oak-stock: ἦσαν δὲ καὶ δρύες ἀπίους ἀγαθὰς ἐκφέρουσαι. Sympos. ii. 6. 1. Footnote 1382: Geop. x. 41. 3. iv. 12. 5. Footnote 1383: Geop. iv. 4. ----- 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] ----- Footnote 1384: Thiersch, Etat Actuel de la Grèce, t. i. p. 298. ----- 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] ----- Footnote 1385: Idem. t. i. p. 288. Speaking of the fertility of the islands, Della Rocca remarks: “Le terroir y est si bon, et les arbres y viennent si vîte, que j’ai vu à Naxie des pépins d’orange de Portugal pousser en moins de huit ans de grands orangers, dont les fruits étoient les plus délicieux du monde, et la tige de l’arbre si haute, qu’il falloit une longue échelle pour y monter.”—Traité Complet des Abeilles, t. i. p. 6. -----