1837] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



S93 



CaMwt'lI, ill ivll-roiicf. to'.he fiicl in North Curolina, 

 ill M:iss;iriiu?eltrJ, iuiil ill Nf'vv Jorsey ; and u 

 confirinatii)n-ol' it in the. lacii inontioncil slate, by 

 Mr. Thomas F. Leaniinir. In '1ip 'liii'fl volnnio, 

 ■Mr. Isaai-, Wayne, son of the Anierie.an jjeiu^ral, 

 the late A. Wayne, also ijivea some iniereatin^r 

 details respectiniX the appearance of limber trees, 

 ol" a kind dilli-rent Irom those which formerly 

 covered the irround in his vicinity, and which had 

 been cut down by the American army, when en- 

 camped tiiere in the autumn and winter of the 

 year 1777. and spring of the rollowiii<r year. One 

 of the above writers refers to the relation of jMr. 

 Hearne, {./ourney in the yurthcni Ocean, p. 452,) 

 f()r the tact of strawberries irrowiii^ up wild near 

 Churchill rivt'rj and in the interior parts of the 

 country, particularly in such placea as have been 

 formerly set on fiie ; and lor that of hips anJ rasp- 

 berry hushes shootinir up in great numbers, in 

 burnt places, where nothing of the kind had ever 

 been seen belore. CartwriLrht is also quoted, in 

 proof ol'the point. He observes, " liiat ii'ihrough 

 carelessness the old spruce woods are burnt, or by 

 lightning, Indian tea first comes up. currants fbl- 

 \o\\\ and after them birch." (^Jour. of Trans, at La- 

 biadnr, Vol. I. p. 225.) Nine years after the [lub- 

 lica ion of this last work, M'Kenzie stated, that 

 "land covered with spruce-pine, and white birch, 

 when laid waste by fire, produced not hint; but 

 poplars;"* and yet th? Edinburgh reviewer of his 

 work very indelicately declared his disbelief of the 

 relation. Rec^ently, we have additional testimony 

 on this subject. In the -Manual on the Culture of 

 Silk,' prepari'd inconsequence of a resolution ofthe 

 House of Refiresentatives ofthe American Con- 

 gress, and published in thesession of 182S, it is stat- 

 ed (p. 38) that "in Tennessee, when a native forest 

 is cut down, if the land be enclosed, a growth of 

 red mulheiry trees soon takes place." All these 

 statements do not admit a doubt to be entertained 

 ofthe natural succession of forest, timber ; the fact 

 is moreover familiar to every man who has lived 

 in the country, and to almost every Intelligent 

 person in North America. 1 regret that the enter- 

 prising voyager did not live to shame the northern 

 critic (or his rudeness, and to enjoy the satislaction 

 of seeing his own testimony of a curious and in- 

 teresting fact in natural history confirmed by others. 

 — Gardener'' s Magazine. 



From tlie Horticultuial Register. 



THE FIG, AND THE PROCESS OF CAPUIFI- 

 CATIOIV. 



The fig tree is a low shrub naturali?:ed in Italy 

 and the south of France, and enduring the open 

 air in the mildest parts of Britain and the United 

 States. This tree in France and Italy, grows as 

 large as our apple trees, but in England and this 

 countryt seldom exceeds two yards in height ; the 

 trunk is about the thickness of a human arm ; the 

 wood is porous and spongy ; the bark ash colored; 

 the branches smooth with oblong white dots ; the 

 leaves annual in the temperate zones, but perenni- 

 al within the topics, cordate, ovate, three or five- 

 lobed, thick and the size of the hand. The fi'uit 

 is a berry, turbinate, and hollow within; produced 

 chiefly on the upper pan ofthe shoots of the fbrm- 



* Voyage from Montreal to the Frozen and Pacific 

 Oceans. London, ISOi. | Massachusetts. 

 Vol. V— 50 



er year, in the axils of the leaves, on small, rormd 

 peduncles. The flowers are proiluced within the 

 fruit, what is considered as the fi-uit being a com- 

 mon calyx receptacle; the male flowers are lew, 

 and itiseiied near the openinij, in the extremity of 

 the receptacle, or li'uit ; the female flowers are ve- 

 ry numerous, anil fill the rest of the hollow space 

 within. The iireater part prove abortive, both 

 with and without the process of caprificution. 

 The fig tree is distinguished from all other trees, 

 with which we are acquainted, by its bearing two 

 successive and distinct crops of' fruit in the same 

 year, each crop beinii- produced on a distinct set of 

 shoots; hut this climate rarely allows the second 

 crop to come to maturity, except where they are 

 forced bv hot- house culture. 



The caprification of figs was practised by the 

 ancients in the same manner as it is now attended 

 to by the inhabitants of" the Archipelago; and it 

 is described by Theophrastus, Plutarch, Pliny, and 

 other authors of anti(]uity. It is too curious a cir- 

 cumstance in the history ofthe fig tree to be omit- 

 ted, as it furnishes a convincing proof of the real- 

 ity of the sexes of plants. In the cultivated fig, 

 the receptacles are found to contain only female 

 flowers, that are fecundated by means of a kind of 

 gnat {cuhXi //.,) bred in the li-uit of the wild fig 

 trees, which pierces that of the cultivated, in order 

 to deposite its eirirs within, at the same time difl'u^ 

 sing within the receptacle the farina of the male 

 flowers; without this operation, the fruit may ri- 

 pen, but no etl'ective seeds are produced. Hence 

 it is, that we can raise no fig trees from the fruil 

 of our gardens, having no wild figs to assist the 

 seed< They are consequently raised by cuttings, 

 layers, suckers, roots, and by ingrafting; the most 

 general method is by layers or cuttings, which 

 come into bearing the second and even the first 

 year. 



In many partsof the Grecian Islands, theinhab- 

 itants pay such attention to the caprification ofthe 

 cultivated fiifiS, that they attend daily for three 

 months in the year to gather these little flies fi-om 

 the wild fiu' trees in their gardens, by which means 

 they not only get finer fruit, but fi-om ten to twelve 

 times the quantity ; thus one of the most minute 

 insects is, by the attention of man, made a princi- 

 pal cultivator of fruit. 



It is a curious liict, that freshly killed venison, 

 or any other animal food, being hungupina fig 

 tree, ibr a sin<rle night, will become as tender, and 

 as ready Ibr dressin<i, as if kept for many days or 

 vveeks, in the common manner. We are told of a 

 gentleman, who made the experiment of suspend- 

 ing a haunch of vension which had lately been 

 killed, in a fiir tree when it was in ILill fbliaire, at 

 about ten o'clock in the evening, and was removed 

 in the morning before sunrise, when it was found 

 in a perfect state for cookinii ; and he adds, that in 

 a \'gv; hours more, it would have been in a state of 

 putrefaction. 



We import the best dried figs from Turkey, It- 

 aly; Spain and Provence. In the south of France, 

 they are prepared by dipping- them in scalding hot 

 lie, made of the ashes of the fig tree, and then 

 dried in the sun. 



The most suitable kind to raise in Great Britain 



or the northern parts of the United States, is the 



Brunswick fig, {Ficus Indica.) In a south enai 



corner, trained against a wall, it ripens in Eng- 



; land by the middle of August, and about a raonth 



