272 GARDENING. 



tice in France is to bury in the earth all such limbs 

 or parts of limbs as can be brought sufficiently low ; 

 while in England they cover the tree with matting, 

 or straw, or branches of evergreens. Either method 

 may be usefully adopted here, remembering, as a 

 general principle, to make the covering as light as 

 may be at all consistent with the object. 



We have said above that the natural habit of the 

 fig is to give two crops in the year ; the latter of 

 which, in hot climates, is found to be the best : but 

 the result with us will be different. The spring 

 shoots only will give fruit here, and must be retain- 

 ed ; while all embryos showing themselves after 

 midsummer should be carefully rubbed off. The 

 effect of this will be, not merely to disencumber the 

 tree of fruit that would not ripen, but to turn the 

 surplus energy wasted upon it to the preparation of 

 new embryo figs for the succeeding year.* 



We cannot dismiss this article without saying 

 something on the artificial method employed, even 

 in hot climates, of improving and ripening the fig, 

 and to which has been given the name of caprifica- 

 tion. This process consists in placing on the trees 

 a few spring figs, in which the Cynips has depos- 

 ited its eggs. From these multitudes of gnats will 

 issue, and in their turn puncture the crop of fall 

 figs, and thus increase their flavour, and quicken, 

 as is believed, their maturity. Such was former- 

 ly the practice in the Levant; while in France 

 they pricked the fruit with a quill or straw dipped 

 in olive oil or brandy, and in Italy with the point 

 of a knife medicated in the same way, on the sup- 

 position that any small wound inflicted on the fruit 

 would have an effect similar to that of the sting of 

 a gnat. These practices are, however, no longer 

 as general as they have been, and, like others 

 founded on doubtful principles, are fast yielding to 



* Swayne on the management of the fig in the open air. 



