POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



573 



festation ; and it is therefore impossible for 

 one man to make an adequate study of it. 

 This is the ground on which M. Forel asked 

 the state to take charge of the matter. 



A Remarkable Fig Tree.— Fig trees grow 

 in Brittany, usually in sheltered places, where 

 they are rarely much taller than the struc- 

 tures that protect them. Near Roscoff is a 

 tree of unusual size and which is very fa- 

 mous. It is about the same height as the 

 other trees of the region — say twelve or six- 

 teen feet — but covers with its branches a sur- 

 face which may be estimated at about four 

 hundred square metres. It is situated in a 

 farm garden. Its single low, gnarled trunk 

 is partly inclosed in a broad wall, so that it 

 is difficult to measure its diameter exactly, 

 but it is in the neighborhood of twenty inches. 

 From it, starting at about six feet from the 

 ground, a great many limbs extend horizon- 

 tally in all directions — some of them as far 

 as fifty feet. These limbs are supported on 

 two garden walls and on thirty-eight granite 

 posts, between two of the rows of which is 

 a covered alley-way, about eighty feet long. 

 A French writer, M. A. Mehard, says that 

 when he saw this tree for the first time, in 

 September, 1884, it was covered with a thick, 

 green foliage, and had on it a great many 

 figs, some of which were beginning to ripen. 

 He asked how old it was, and was told that 

 the oldest persons in the region had never 

 known it to be different from its present ap- 

 pearance. " How many figs a year does it 

 bear ? " " As many as we want ; if we pick 

 them every day, there are always some left." 

 " But how many do you pick a day ? " " Sev- 

 eral baskets a season " (of two or three 

 months). " Is it still growing." "Yes, sir; 

 it would soon cover the whole plot if I didn't 

 cut off the ends of the limbs every year." It 

 is true that the tree, though very old, is still 

 vigorous and bears good fruit ; and that, not- 

 withstanding the disproportion between the 

 trunk and branches, the latter make good 

 growths. The tree stands at the extreme 

 limit of vegetation approaching the seashore. 



Botany as a University-extension Study. 



— Writing in University Extension in favor 

 of placing botany among the subjects of ex- 

 tension lectures, Prof. J. M. McFarlane re- 

 marks upon the extent to which the mind has 



been blinded by the current system of edu- 

 cation to the perception of all that is in the 

 living world outside it. One, he says, " can 

 watch the process going on. Every average 

 child shows a natural desire to become ac- 

 quainted not only with the men, women, and 

 children that he meets day by day, but with 

 the animals and plants that he sees moving, 

 and growing. This tendency is usually en- 

 couraged by the parents if they are sensible 

 and know something of the facts of Nature. 

 In the majority of cases, however, through 

 pure ignorance they stifle the budding quali- 

 ties of the child. And as school education 

 advances, the stifling process is completed, for 

 the child is silently taught that all knowledge 

 can only come from books or the talk of 

 teachers, and that to acquire knowledge 

 through the tongue, by touch, from the 

 sounds of natural objects, or by an eye-to-eye 

 study of them, is a waste of time." Perceiv- 

 ing that the course of a few extension lec- 

 tures is not sufficient to ground pupils well 

 in Nature studies, the author suggests the 

 combination with it of correspondence teach- 

 ing. In proof of the feasibility of this, he 

 shows that he has himself for eight years 

 directed the work of students hundreds of 

 miles apart, some of whom were advanced to 

 the study of the highest works on the sub- 

 ject. But, besides the use of books and hand 

 diagrams, he every fortnight forwarded from 

 ten to thirty fresh specimens to each, which 

 they were required to examine, describe, and 

 classify. Material for microscopic study was 

 supplied for those possessed of suitable in- 

 struments. Many of these pupils are now suc- 

 cessful teachers of biology in schools and col- 

 leges, and two of them have established 

 school botanic gardens. 



Pepper-raising in Cambodia. — The pepper 

 plant, says M. Adhemard Leclere, in the Revue 

 Scientifique, is not a bush, as some writers 

 say, but a vine which has to be supported by 

 a tree when wild and by a strong stake when 

 cultivated. The author has seen the vines 

 growing nearly wild near Chandoc in Cam- 

 bodia, where they had been planted by the 

 villagers and left to themselves. They grew 

 vigorously and to considerable length, but bore 

 only a few bunches of fruit and that of an 

 inferior quality. An abundant crop of good 

 pepper can be obtained only by careful and 



