304 FOREST CULTURE AND 
festuca, which might advantageously be introduced 
from various parts of the globe for rural purposes. ] 
Ficus Carica, L.*—Orient. The ordinary Fig-tree. 
Jt attains an age of several hundred years. In our 
latitudes and clime a prolific tree. The most useful 
and at the same time the most hardy of about a thou- 
sand recorded species of Ficus. The extreme facility 
with which it can be propagated from cuttings, the 
resistance to heat, the comparatively early yield and 
easy culture, recommend the Fig-tree to be chosen 
where it is an object to raise masses of tree-vege- 
tation in widely treeless landscapes of the warmer 
zones. Hence the extensive plantations of this tree 
made in formerly woodless parts of Egypt ; hence the 
likelihood of choosing the fig as one of the trees for 
extensive planting through favorable portions of our 
desert - wastes ; where, moreover, the fruit could be 
dried with particular ease. Caprification is unneces- 
sary, even in some instances injurious and objection- 
ble. Two main varieties may be distinguished, that 
which produces two crops a year and that which yields 
but one. The former includes the gray or purple fig, 
which is the best, the white fig and the golden fig, the 
latter being the finest in appearance but not in quality. 
The main variety, which bears only one crop a year, 
supplies the greatest quantity of figs for drying, among 
which the Marseillaise and Bellonne are considered 
the best. The Barnisote and the Aubique produce 
delicious large fruits, but they must be dried with 
fire- heat, and are usually consumed fresh. The 
ordinary drying is effected in the sun, For remarks 
on this and other points, concerning the fig, the-val- 
vable tract, recently published by the Rev. Dr, Bleas: 
