62 FIG. 



is cultivated in England as a fruit tree, and, in warm situa- 

 tions, will ripen its fruit in the open air. In Sussex, on the 

 sea-coast, it ripens its fruit on standards. Some of the best 

 in England are at Arundel Castle ; and there is a Fig or- 

 chard of one hundred trees at Tarring, near Worthing. 

 Those at Arundel are planted six or eight feet apart, and 

 from a single stem allowed to continue branching conical 

 heads, pruning chiefly irregular and redundant growths, and 

 cutting out decayed or injured wood. 



The Fig tree may be propagated from seed, cuttings, 

 layers, suckers, roots, and by grafting ; the most generally 

 approved method is by layers or cuttings, which come into 

 bearing the second, and sometimes the first year. No tree 

 is more robust or more prolific ; even plants in pots or tubs 

 kept in a temperature adapted for the Orange tree, will fruit 

 freely, and ripen two crops a year, and by being taken care 

 of through the winter, will go on growing and ripening fruit 

 without intermission. Mr. Knight has obtained from his 

 hot-house in England, eight successive crops in a year, by 

 bending the limbs in a position below the horizontal. The 

 trees will produce tolerable crops in the second year if rung 

 or decorticated ; and by this process maturity of the fruit is 

 accelerated, and its size increased.* Its maturity is also has- 

 tened by pricking the fruit with a straw or quill dipped in 

 olive oil, or even by slightly touching the fruit with oil, at 

 the finger's end. In Fig countries the fruit is preserved by 

 dipping it in scalding lye, made of the ashes of the Fig tree, 

 and then dried in the sun. 



* Girdling, decortication, ringing, or circumcision, as it is sometimes va- 

 riously called, consists in making two circular incisions quite round the 

 limb, through the bark, at the distance of about a quarter of an inch asun- 

 der, more or less, according to the size and thickness of the tree ; then by 

 making a perpendicular slit, the ring of the bark is wholly removed to the 

 wood. Ringing or decortication is applicable to every kind of fruit tree, 

 and to the vine. Its operation is twofold. First, in the early production 

 and abundance of blossom buds which it induces: and second, in increasing 

 the size of the fruit and hastening its maturity, according to the season in 

 hirsh the operation is performed. 



