Economics

Then it turns out that on these points too your opinion agrees with mine. But would you merely heap up the earth, or make it firm round the plant?I should make it firm, of course; for if it were not firm, I feel sure that the rain would make mud of the loose earth, and the sun would dry it up from top to bottom; so the plants would run the risk of damping off through too much water, or withering from too much heat at the roots.

About vine[*](The mention of the vine comes in so abruptly that one again suspects the loss of something in the text.) planting then, Socrates, your views are again exactly the same as mine, too? I asked. Yes, and to all other fruit trees, I think; for in planting other trees why discard anything that gives good results with the vine?

But the olive—how shall we plant that, Ischomachus?You know quite well, and are only trying to draw me out again. For I am sure you see that a deeper hole is dug for the olive (it is constantly being done on the roadside); you see also that all the growing shoots have stumps adhering to them; and you see that all the heads of the plants are coated with clay, and the part of the plant that is above ground is wrapped up.

Yes, I see all this.You do! Then what is there in it that you don’t understand? Is it that you don’t know how to put the crocks on the top of the clay, Socrates?Of course there is nothing in what you have said that I don’t know, Ischomachus. But I am again set thinking what can have made me answer No to the question you put to me a while ago, when you asked me briefly, Did I understand planting? For I thought I should have nothing to say about the right method of planting. But now that you have undertaken to question me in particular, my answers, you tell me, agree exactly with the views of a farmer so famous for his skill as yourself!

Can it be that questioning is a kind of teaching, Ischomachus? The fact is, I have just discovered the plan of your series of questions! You lead me by paths of knowledge familiar to me, point out things like what I know, and bring me to think that I really know things that I thought I had no knowledge of.