A peculiar remedy for the maladies to which radishes, beet, rue, and cunila are subject, is salt water, which has also the additional merit of conducing very materially to their sweetness and fertility. Other plants, again, are equally benefitted by being watered with fresh water, the most desirable for the purpose being that which is the coldest and the sweetest to drink: pond and drain-water, on the other hand, are not so good, as they are apt to carry the seeds of weeds along with them. It is rain,[1242] however, that forms the principal aliment of plants; in addition to which, it kills the insects as they develope themselves upon them. CHAP. 60. (12.)—THE PROPER METHOD OF WATERING GARDENS. The proper times[1243] for watering are the morning and the evening, to prevent the water from being heated[1244] by the sun; with the sole exception, however, of ocimum, which requires to be watered at midday; indeed, this plant, it is generally thought, will grow with additional rapidity, if it is watered with boiling water when sown. All plants, when transplanted, grow all the better and larger for it, leeks and turnips more particularly. Transplanting, too, is attended with certain remedial effects, and acts as a preservative to certain plants, such as scallions, for instance, leeks, radishes, parsley, lettuces, rape, and cucumbers. All the wild plants[1245] are generally smaller in the leaf and stalk than the cultivated ones, and have more acrid juices, cunila, wild marjoram, and rue, for example. Indeed, it is only the lapathum[1246] that is better in a wild state than cultivated: in its cultivated state it is the same plant that is known to us as the “rumix,” being the most vigorous[1247] by far of all the plants that are grown; so much so, indeed, that it is said that when it has once taken root, it will last for ever, and can never be extirpated from the soil, more particularly if water happens to be near at hand. Its juices, which are employed only in ptisans,[1248] as an article of food, have the effect of imparting to them a softer and more exquisite flavour. The wild variety[1249] is employed for many medicinal purposes. So true it is, that the careful research of man has omitted nothing, that I have even met with a poem,[1250] in which I find it stated, that if pellets of goats’ dung, the size of a bean, are hollowed out, and the seed of leeks, rocket, lettuces, parsley, endive, and cresses is inserted in them, and then sown, the plants will thrive in a marvellous degree. Plants[1251] in a wild state, it is generally thought, are more dry and acrid than when cultivated. CHAP. 61.—THE JUICES AND FLAVOURS OF GARDEN HERBS.