232 Fruits and Fruit- Trees. 



in a cider-orchard. No circumstance connected with the 

 beautiful Tarring orchards is more interesting than that 

 they are annually visited by the little fig-bird of the 

 Roman Campagna. This pretty migrant arrives from 

 Italy at the beginning of every September, enjoys itself, 

 to the prejudice of the owner, and when satisfied, say, 

 shortly before the first frost gives notice of winter, spreads 

 its wings and goes home. The sorts grown in Sussex 

 and Hampshire appear to be chiefly the capital old ones 

 known as Brown Turkey, White Marseilles, and Green 

 Ischia. In the northern counties, when good fruit is the 

 object, the fig is grown under glass, though it ripens out- 

 of-doors even in Fifeshire. At Balmuto, three miles from 

 the sea, and three hundred and fifty feet above the sea- 

 level, it yields a fairly good crop every year without any 

 protection save that of a south wall. The fig is a hardier 

 plant, indeed, than is generally imagined. To dwellers 

 in towns it has the great recommendation also of being 

 able to endure smoke and confinement among houses. 

 Like the elder, it will grow in the hard-trodden soil of a 

 back-yard ; the growth under such conditions cannot be 

 expected to be very luxuriant; still, like the Virginian 

 Creeper, it can make itself quite happy. Wise plants are 

 those which after the manner of the wise among mankind, 

 if they cannot always have what they would like, adjust 

 themselves to the liking of what they have. No town- 

 gardener should ever forget to plant his fig-tree. 



The dried figs of the grocers' shops are imported 

 chiefly from Smyrna, whence their commercial name of 



