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] ----- Footnote 1386: On the artificial ripening of dates, Theoph. ii. 8. 4. Footnote 1387: Athen. iii. 19. Plut. Phoc. § 3. Xenoph. Vectigal. i. 3. Footnote 1388: Ὁ νοῦν ἔχων γεωργός, ὧν σπερμάτων κήδοιτο καὶ ἔγκαρπα βούλοιτο γενέσθαι, πότερα σπονδῇ ἂν θέρους εἰς ᾿Αδώνιδος κήπους ἀρῶν χαίροι θεωρῶν καλοὺς ἐν ἡμέραισιν ὀκτὼ γιγνομένους.—Plat. Phœd. t. i. p. 99. Suid. v. Ἀδώνιδ. κῆπ. t. i. p. 84. b. Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 7. 3. Caus. Plant. i. 12. 2. Eustath. ad Odyss. λ. p. 459. 4. Footnote 1389: Tod, Annals of Rajast’han, vol. i. p. 570. Footnote 1390: