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. ----- Footnote 1404: Geop. x. 3. Cf. Xenoph. Œconom. xix. 3. Footnote 1405: Plin. xvii. 13. When a tree was barren, or had lost its strength in blooming, they split it at the root, and put a stone into the fissure to keep it open, after which it was said to bear well. Theoph. Hist. Plant. ii. 7. 6. It was customary, moreover, to wound the trunks of almond, pear, and other trees, as the service-tree in Arcadia, in order to render them fertile. 1d. ii. 7. 7. The berries of the cornel and service-trees were sweeter and ripened earlier wild than when cultivated, iii. 2. 1. Footnote 1406: The ancients believed that the moon ripens fruit, promotes digestion, and causes putrefaction in wood, and animal substances. Athen. vii. 3. Cf. Plut. Sympos. iii. 10. Footnote 1407: Geop. x. 2. 13. Footnote 1408: Cf. Vigenère, Images des Philostrates, p. 48. Footnote 1409: