If garlic or onions are wanted to keep some time, the heads should be dipped in salt water, made luke-warm; by doing this, they will be all the better for keeping, though quite worthless for reproduction. Some persons content themselves with hanging them over burning coals, and are of opinion that this is quite sufficient to prevent them from sprouting: for it is a well-known fact, that both garlic and onions sprout when out of the ground, and that after throwing out their thin shoots they shrivel away to nothing. Some persons are of opinion, too, that the best way of keeping garlic is by storing it in chaff. There is a kind[1074] of garlic that grows spontaneously in the fields, and is known by the name of “alum.” To preserve the seeds that are sown there from the remorseless ravages of the birds, this plant is scattered over the ground, being first boiled, to prevent it from shooting. As soon as ever they have eaten of it, the birds become so stupefied as to be taken with the hand even,[1075] and if they remain but a few moments only on the spot, they fall fast asleep. There is a wild garlic, too, generally known as “bear’s” garlic;[1076] it has exactly the smell of millet, with a very small head and large leaves. CHAP. 35. (7.)—THE NUMBER OF DAYS REQUIRED FOR THE RESPECTIVE PLANTS TO MAKE THEIR APPEARANCE ABOVE GROUND. Among the garden[1077] plants which make their appearance most speedily above ground, are ocimum, blite, the turnip, and rocket; for they appear above the surface the third day after they are sown. Anise, again, comes up on the fourth day, the lettuce on the fifth, the radish on the sixth, the cucumber and the gourd on the seventh—the cucumber rather the first of the two—cresses and mustard on the fifth, beet on the sixth day in summer and the tenth in winter, orage on the eighth, onions on the nineteenth or twentieth, and scallions on the tenth or twelfth. Coriander, again, is more stubborn in its growth, cunila and wild marjoram do not appear till after the thirtieth day, and parsley comes up with the greatest difficulty of all, for at the very earliest it is forty days before it shows itself, and in most instances as much as fifty. The age,[1078] too, of the seed is of some importance in this respect; for fresh seed comes up more rapidly in the case of the leek, the scallion, the cucumber, and the gourd, while in that of parsley, beet, cardamum, cunila, wild marjoram, and coriander, seed that has been kept for some time is the best.