cae” a 
THE FIG: ITS HISTORY, CULTURE, AND CURING. 
CHAPTER I. : 
- INTRODUCTORY. 
NAME: AND DERIVATION. 
The English word “‘fig” is of very ancient origin, and is derived 
from the Latin ‘‘ficus” and the yet older Hebrew name ‘‘feg.” The 
English word must have originated during the Roman invasion of 
England, when probably the first fig trees were planted in English 
soil. As early as 1250 the word was in general use in a commercial 
sense, as ‘“‘figges” or ‘‘fegges” constituted one of the products 
regularly imported into England, especially from Portugal and Spain. 
The wild fig, the ancestor of the edible fig race, is unknown in 
English-speaking countries, except, of course, where found as botan- 
ical specimens. In the semitropical Mediterranean districts this wild 
fig is met everywhere except in the north of Italy and the Riviera 
and in the south of France. In Italy the wild fig is known as the 
‘‘profico,” ‘fico selvaggio,” or ‘‘caprificus,” the last name being 
derived from capra (goat) and ficus (fig), and indicating the worth- 
lessness of the fruit for eating purposes. From ‘‘caprificus” is 
derived our name ‘“‘caprifig” and the French ‘‘caprifiguier.” In 
Spain it is known, in some districts, at least, as the ‘‘caprahigo.” In 
Greece it is called ‘‘erineos,” while the edible fig is there known 
as ‘‘sycon” (gvxov). In Hebrew the edible fig was ‘‘téena,” in 
Aramaic ‘‘téna,” and in Arabic it is ‘‘tin.” It may not be out of 
place also to note that the name of another celebrated fig variety, the 
“Sycamore,” of Egypt, is derived from the Greek ‘‘sycon” (fig) and 
‘‘moro” (mulberry), meaning mulberry fig, on account of the peculiar 
arrangement of the fruit: What we in the United States incorrectly 
eall ‘‘syeamore” is really not a sycamore, but a plane tree. 
The various crops of the fig, as well as of the caprifig, are also 
given different names in different countries. In these pages refer- 
ence is made to the wild fig as ‘“‘caprifig,” meaning thereby only the 
male tree of Ficus carica L., while the word fig will always refer to 
the edible fig, or the cultivated race of the same species. 
23740—No. 9—O1 
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