448 



SOUTHERN FRUIT. 



NOTES ON SOUTHERN FRUIT. 



BY ROB'T CHISHOLM, BEAUFORT, S. G. 



Dear Sir : — Not seeing de- 

 scribed in your work on 

 fruils, several that I have, 

 and others that are cultiva- 

 ted in this neighborhood, 1 

 have thought some account 

 of them might prove accept- 

 able to you. 



I must first mention tvi^o 

 or three figs, which are cul- 

 tivated here, and the merits 

 of which are not, perhaps, 

 known to you. The first of 

 these, I cannot give you the 

 name of with positive cer- 

 tainty, but I believe it is the 

 Alicante. It is a most abun- 

 dant bearer, commencing to 

 ripen its fruit about the 10th 

 to 15th of July, seven to ten 

 days earlier than the white 

 or lemon fig, and continu- 

 ing, in strong clay lands, to 

 bear abundantl)?^, until a hea- 

 vy black frost, which usually 

 happens here about the mid- 

 dle of November. I send you a double out- 

 line of the fig. The larger outline is the 

 form of the fruit of the first crop, but the 

 inner, dotted outline is about the normal 

 form of of the fruit generally. 



I had three trees of tolerable size of this 

 variety, bearing, for two summers, imme- 

 diately under ^my eye,' and gathered the 

 fruit almost every morning myself, and ne- 

 ver had any doubt about its being a purple 

 fig while some of my friends, who have 

 trees from the same source, pronounced it a 

 brown one ; but you may see by the shape 

 that it is purple. This variety and the Ce- 

 lestial, which is as remakable for its small- 



Fig. 54.— r/ie Alicante Fig- 



ness as this is for the largeness of its size, 

 are certainly the two very best figs that I 

 have eaten. 



The Celestial comes to us from New Or- 

 leans, where it is es- 

 teemed the best fig they 

 have. It is brown, and 

 the skin so thin that when 

 fully ripened, which is 

 indicated by its shrivel- 

 ling, and hanging dowri, 

 it can be eaten without i 

 being peeled. The tree 

 grows rather slowly, and 

 neither bears very early Fig. 55.—ceiestiai Fig. 



