1S69. ] 



FIG-CULTURE IN FBANCE. 



211 



Tkanet, the Fig succeeds well as a standard tree. It is not, however, in this 

 form that it is most successfully treated around Paris, for the frosts are severe 

 enough to leave it little chance of escaping destruction. The plan adopted to 

 protect the trees and fruit is to collect the branches into three or four bundles, and 



in this form to bury them in a 

 trench beneath little banks or 

 ridges of earth, the crown of 

 the root being also protected in 

 a similar way. Such a plan 

 might very well be adopted in 

 favourable localities in England. 

 The plan admits of being car- 

 ried out on sloping ground, with 

 a very slight modification, and 

 in this way our railway em- 

 bankments having a southern 

 exposure might, in many in- 

 stances, be utilized. 



In our climate, as in that 

 Fig. 1. -^^s^£^s^^- of France, the Fig, as is well 



known, produces at the latter part of the season incipient fruit, which form 

 the first crop of the following year ; while in spring it produces other fruit, 

 which get matured by the end of summer in very favourable seasons only. The 

 former, called the first crop, or by the French figues-jleurs, are the most import- 

 ant, and it is these which the French . * . 

 system of culture is intended to secure ; 

 while the others, the second crop, or 

 Jigues tVautomnc, are seldom of much 

 importance, and are hence, for the most 

 part, unheeded. 



Fig. 2. Fig. 3. 



The Fig trees are planted at five or six yards apart, in lines four yards apart, the 

 holes being of considerable size, and filled with well-manured soil. Layers are used, 

 and the roots are planted rather deep, the surface of the hole being at least a foot 

 below the general level. During two summers the plants are allowed to grow unmo- 

 lested, and in winter the branches are covered with earth to the thickness of a foot, 



