Most of his agricultural writings were
arranged in calendar form. He frequently quoted
Columella. He gave a more complete description
of vegetables, fruits and field crops than Columella.
His work De Re Rustica is a poem consisting of
14 books.
(Status of Writing of Aristotle and
Theophrastus
Treatises of the great writers of natural history,
Aristotle and Theophrastus, were not current until
after the 11th and 12th Centuries. At this time
translations into Latin from the Greek and
retranslations from Arabic began to appear. Even then
Theophrastus was neglected in favor of Dioscorides
although Aristotle began to have considerable
influence. His Historia Animalium although
translated early into Arabic and current throughout
the East was long untranslated in the West.)
