iSyi.] CULTIVATION OF HARDY FRUITS. 9 



THE CULTIVATION OF HAHDY FRUITS. 



{Continued from 2)age 5i5, for 1870.) 



THE FIG. 



It may be doubted by some wliether I am justified in calling the Fig 

 a hardy fruit, seeing that it cannot with safety be allowed to stand 

 over the winter in our northern latitudes without protection of 

 some sort or another. Seeing, however, that it is grown out of 

 doors to a greater or less extent in almost all places of any note 

 — and in many places extensively and well — it is but right that 

 it should find a place in these papers. I may be allowed further 

 to premise, ere the subject be fully entered upon, that in point of 

 fact the Fig is not a fruit at all, although we generally speak of 

 it as such. A Fig, in the strictest sense of the word, is a compound 

 flower, and it will take no great amount of physiological reasoning 

 to prove it. When a Fig first becomes evident upon a branch of 

 its tree, it is not in the usual form of a bud, from which a flower 

 bursts and expands into fragrance and beauty — it appears as a Fig at 

 once, and continues to swell until what we call the perfect fruit is 

 reached, without ever producing a flower. Let it be explained in this 

 way. What is called the fruit is in reality the toi'us or bed upon 

 which rests the flower and fruit of the plant. The flower is therefore 

 inside the torus, and blooms and fructifies as really as does the flower 

 of the Pear or the Peach. The true fruit of the Fig is also inside the 

 torus, and consists of those small appendages which crack between the 

 teeth like little nuts, when the Fig is being eaten. This, then, is the 

 real and true fruit of the Fig, while the great bulk of what we eat is 

 just the fleshy torus of the plant, and is, in a botanical sense, identical 

 with the torus of the Dandelion, after the seed has blown away, — with 

 these differences, that in the one the torus is flat and bears its fruit 

 externally, while the other is knob-like, and bears its fruit internally. 

 The torus of the Fig is indeed like the torus of the Dandelion turned 

 inside out. 



The Fig is very easily propagated, and may be increased in many 

 different ways. The ordinary modes are from cuttings of either the 

 tops or roots, or by suckers and layers. New varieties, like other 

 fruits, are only to be obtained from seed; and seeing that there are 

 great obstacles in the way of artificial impregnation, a deal of time 

 and patience might be exhausted ere any satisfactory results could be 

 obtained. All or nearly all our new varieties of Figs, which are not 

 many, are the results of chance. Those who may desire to raise seed- 

 lings should choose a fine-shaped and fully-ripened fruit ; the seed 



