90 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTUEE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEE. 



[ January 30, ISIX. 



cottage, which is in the kitchen garden, Mr. Lawrence, the 

 gardener. Mr. Lawrence had been there more than forty-four 

 years, he having been in the employ of the Simeon family for 

 a number of years during the late Sir Eichard Simeon's life, 

 forty years ago. None of the new-fashioned notions about 

 flower gardening were then dreamed of — this Mr. Lawrence 

 has often told me ; and then after the family gave up living 

 there, the object most kept in view was how to make the most 

 of the kitchen gardens, or I might with greater propriety call 

 them fruit gardens. They were three acres in extent ; two acres 

 were enclosed by liigh brick walls. These had originally been 

 very substantially built ; but for many years past time has been 

 Ehowing its effects on them, and here and there they have re- 

 quired buttresses to keep them up. The climate being mild, 

 Fig trees always formed a noticeable feature, and were so when 

 my old friend, Mr. Lawrence, became gardener forty-five years 

 ago. 



I have already remarked that after Mr. Lawrence had been 

 at St. John's about ten years the family went to live at Swans- 

 ton, in the west of the island, and that the house was let, but 



the gardens were not, and Mr. Lawrence sold to the tenants of 

 the house whatever they required from the gardens, and then 

 disposed of the 6un)lus produce as best he could. For the 

 first few years he sold fruit to the shop-keepers at Eydc ; but 

 as the town grew and became more fashionable the fruit gar- 

 den at St. John's became better known, and ultimately he bad 

 no need to take any of his fruit to Eyde. 



I may take it for gianted that everj- person, young as well as 

 old, is familiar with the dried Figs of the shops, and which arc 

 chiefly imported from the shores of the Mediterranean ; but, 

 probably, not nine out of a hundred of those who eat them 

 have ever enjoyed the rich and refreshing treat of half a 

 dozen genuine ripe Figs fresh gathered from the tree. There 

 could be no comparison between the fruit gathered, perhaps 

 before projierly ripe, sijueezed into the least possible compass 

 in a box, and carried some hundred? of miles by sea, and the 

 many thousands of ripe Figs which Mr. Lawrence gathered every 

 year for more than a generation. Many are the visitors to Eyde 

 during the summer, and the Eyde season is generally the gay- 

 est during the time out-door Figs are ripe, and if ever a gardener 



Fig. 1 



felt a pleasure in his employment it was my old friend in 

 everything respecting his Figs and Fig trees. 



There are about twenty-six or twenty-eight of them, and one- 

 half of them are growing over a wooden trellis, which quite 

 covers a walk running across one of the compartments of the 

 garden ; the others are growing on the outside and inside of one 

 of the outer walls of the garden. For years Mr. Lawrence 

 had carefully cut, pruned, and regularly tied-in those Fig trees 

 which are against the walls ; but, being a quick observer of 

 everything which came under his care, he perceived that those 

 trees (and, perhaps, no equal number in any part of England 

 can be compared with them), which were not so treated, but were 

 left more to themselves, bore a far greater number of fruits, and 

 were, moreover, shorter-jointed, and did not make so much gross 

 wood as the trees against the walls, with which he took such 

 great pains. He, therefore, gave up pruning them, and for 

 years before I became acquainted with them they had assumed 

 quite the character of trees, and during summer, while in full 

 leaf, they quite hid the garden wall, on one side extending to 

 from 4 to 6 yards from the wall, and reaching over it for 1 or 

 2 yards. These Fig trees had for a generation never been 



pruned in the ordinary acceptation of the term, but when they 

 I became over-thick Mr. Lawrence, saw in hand, cut out the 



branches to the required distance apart. 

 '• The Fig trees had long been well known to a large portion of 

 the visitors to Eyde ; but the town has of late years grown so 

 fast that it is now almost close to St. John's, and last autumn 

 the old garden and all the adjoining land were bought for bnild- 

 ( ing-puri)oses. I am therefore afraid that these old, noble, and 

 I verv productive Fig trees will now soon be numbered with the 

 things which have been. I have often wished that some pho- 

 tographer would take them, the picture they would make would 

 be interesting, independently of its furnishing a faithful record 

 { of what they have been. Tlieir produce always commanded 

 a high price when Eyde was full of company, and should they 

 be destroyed will be much missed. Even- year, when we had no 

 I cold and chilly night about the end of April, May, or the 

 ' beginning of June, ripe Figs might be expected by the thousand 

 , in August and September, and up to the beginning of October 

 if the weather was fine. 



Passing through St. John's garden soon after it was sold for 

 I building, and thinMng over the changes which in all probability 



