THE CASADIAX HORTICULTURIST. 91 



A NEW IXDUSTRY— FIG CULTURE AT THE NORTH A 



SUCCESS. 



BY G. F. NEEDHAM, WASHIXGTGX, D. C.. 



Some writer has said: "In a climate like ours any addition to the 

 lii.Kury of fruits should be studied. We cannot have many of the 

 productions of the more southern, climes, but by a little care we can 

 have some that are seldom grown." 



Tlie vegetable world has been "studied," and the result is that most 

 of our vegetables have been gathered from these tropical homes. I 

 propose in this paper to study one of the tropical fruits, the fig, from 

 both a theoretical and practical standpoint. And I make this emphatic 

 statement that no other crop can be raised whicli will give so certain 

 and so large returns in our Middle and Northern States, as that delicious 

 fruit, the fig. 



The fig flourishes in much more unfavorable climates than our 

 own. In Great Britain, for instance, figs have been grown in the open 

 air for more than three hundred years; the original trees brought from 

 Italy by Cardinal Pole, still bearing. Now, if in that damp, foggy, 

 "misty, moisty" atmosphere, where melons and cucumbers cannot be 

 grown, the fig will succeed, how mucli more will it flourish in our 

 bright and sunny climate ! 



The climate of our north temperate zone is one of the best 

 possible for the full development of the fig. It is a well known fact 

 that too great heat is inimical to this plant; it causes the tree to cast 

 its fruit. Our northern climes are superior to the southern for another 

 reason — our days are several hours longer than at the south, which 

 gives a lengthened and tempered day, which precisely suits the fig. 



Countries where figs are grown as an article of commerce are 

 exposed to similar vicissitudes of climate as are our Northern States, 

 I have before me a letter from a gentleman in Massachusetts, in 

 which he says: "I was born in the Levant, and I was a resident in 

 Constantinople one winter, when the Golden Horn (the Bosphorus) 

 was frozen over, and there was a snow fall of eighteen to twenty inches 

 for a couple of weeks, without injury to the fig trees in tlie vicinity." 



The reason that the fig yields so abundantly, is not only that it 

 is prolific, but first, because the fruit has no insect enemies, and secondly, 



