THE FIG. 207 



CHAPTER XV. 



THE FIG. 



Ficus Carica, L. Arb. Brit. Urticacece, of botanists. 

 Figuier, oi the French ; Feigeribaum, German ; Fico, Italian ; Higuera^ Spanish. 



THIS celebrated fruit tree, whose history is as ancient as that 

 of the world, belongs properly to a warm climate, though it may 

 be raised in the open air, in the middle states, with proper care. 



In its native countries, Asia and Africa, near the sea-coast it 

 forms a low tree, twenty feet in height, with spreading branch- 

 es, and large, deeply lobed, rough leaves. It is completely 

 naturalized in the south of Europe, where its cultivation is one 

 of the most important occupations of the fruit grower. 



The fruit of the Fig tree is remarkable for making its ap- 

 pearance, growing, and ripening, without being preceded by any 

 apparent blossom. The latter, however, is concealed in the 

 interior of a fleshy receptacle which is called, and finally be- 

 comes, the fruit. The flavour of the fig is exceedingly sweet 

 and luscious, so much so as not to be agreeable to many per- 

 sons, when tasted for the first time ; but, like most fruits of this 

 kind, it becomes a great favourite with all after a short trial, 

 and is really one of the most agreeable, wholesome, and nutri- 

 tious kinds of food. It has always, indeed, been the favourite 

 fruit of warm countries, and the ideal of earthly happiness and 

 content, as typified in the Bible, consists in sitting under one's 

 own fig tree. 



Its cultivation was carried to great perfection among the An- 

 cient Romans, who had more than twenty varieties in their 

 gardens. But the Athenians seem to have prided themselves 

 most on their figs, and even made a law forbidding any to be 

 exported from Attica. Smuggling, however, seems to have 

 been carried on in those days, and a curious little piece of ety- 

 mological history is connected with the fig. The informers 

 against those who broke this law were called sukophantai, from 

 two words in the Greek, meaning the " discoverers of figs." And 

 as their power appears also to have been used for malicious 

 purposes, thence arose our word sycophant. The fig was first 

 introduced from Italy about 1548, by Cardinal Poole, and to 

 this country about 1790, by Wm. Hamilton, Esq.* 



* Dr. Pocock, the oriental traveller, first brought the fig to Oxford, and plantea 

 a tree in 1648, in Oxford College Garden, of which tree the following anecdote is 

 told. Dr. Kennicott, the celebrated Hebrew scholar, and compiler of the Polyglott 

 Bible, was passionately fond of this fruit, and, seeing a very fine fig on this tree 

 that he wished to preserve, wrote on a label " Dr. Kennicott's fig," which he tied 

 to the fruit. An Oxonian wag, who had observed the transaction, watched the 

 fruit daily, and, when ripe, gathered it, and exchanged the label for one thus 

 worded " a fig fo Dr. Kennicott." Mclntosh. 



