ENQUIRY INTO PLANTS, V. IX. 4–6
smooth[1] billets: for they must be laid as close as possible for the smouldering process. When they have covered[2] the kiln, they kindle the heap by degrees, stirring it with poles. Such is the wood required for the charcoal-heap.
In general damp wood makes an evil smoke, and for this reason green wood does so: I mean the damp woods which grow in marshy ground, such as plane willow abele black poplar: for even vine-wood, when it is damp, gives an evil smoke. So does palm-wood of its own nature, and some have supposed it to give the most evil smoke of all: whence Chaeremon[3] speaks of "Veins issuing underground from roots of palm with its malodorous smoke." Most pungent is the smoke of fig-wood, whether wild or cultivated, and of any tree which has a curdling juice; the reason lies in the sap; when such wood has been barked and soaked in running water and then dried, it gives as little smoke as any other, and sends up a very soft[4] flame, since its natural moisture also has been removed. The cinders and ashes of such wood are also pungent, and especially, they say, those of almond-wood.
For the crafts requiring a furnace and for other crafts various woods are serviceable according to circumstances.[5] For kindling fig and olive are best: fig, because it is tough and of open texture, so that it easily catches fire and does not let it through,[6] olive, because it is of close texture and oily.
- ↑ λεῖα conj. Scal. from G; νέα Ald.
- ↑ With sods. cf. Plin., l.c., who seems to have had a fuller text.
- ↑ An Athenian tragic poet. Scal. restores the quotation thus: τοῦ τε δυσκαπνωτάου | φοίνικος ἐκ γῆς ῥιζοφοιτήτους φλέβας (ῥιζοφιτύτους conj. Schneidewin).
- ↑ i.e. not sputtering.
- ↑ καὶ … χρησίμη conj. W.; τέχναις ἀλλήλας χρ. MV; τέχνη ἄλλη ἐστι χρ. P.; τ. ἀλλήλοις ἐστὶ χρησίμη Ald.
- ↑ i.e. burn out quickly.
