246 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



monks. The specimens came from Italy, and are 

 still in the archbishop's gardens at Lambeth. They 

 are of the white Marseilles kind, and bear excellent 

 fruit. In the course of their long existence, they 

 have attained a size far exceeding the standard fig- 

 tree in its native situations. They cover a space of 

 fifty feet in height, and forty in breadth. The trunk 

 of the one is twenty-eight, and the other twenty-one 

 inches in circumference. In the severe winter of 

 1813-14, those venerable trees were greatly injured; 

 and, in consequence of the injury, it was found neces- 

 sary to cut the principal stems down nearly to the 

 ground; but the vegetative powers of the roots re- 

 mained unimpaired, and they are shooting up with 

 great vigour. 



In the garden of the manor-house at Mitcham, 

 which was formerly the private estate of Archbishop 

 Cranmer, there was another fig-tree of the same sort, 

 which is generally understood to have been planted 

 by that prelate. It was low, compared with the trees 

 at Lambeth, but had a thicker stem. It was destroyed 

 some time before the close of the last century. 



Another celebrated fig-tree was in in the Dean's 

 garden at Winchester. It bore a small red fig, and 

 was in a healthy state in the year 1757. It was in- 

 closed in a wooden frame, which had a glass door, 

 with two windows on each side, by which the sun and 

 air were admitted, while the frame protected it from 

 the wind and rain. On the stone wall to which the 

 tree was nailed, there were several inscriptions; and, 

 among the rest, one which mentioned that, in the 

 year 1623, King James I. "tasted the fruit of this 

 tree with great pleasure." That tree also has been 

 destroyed. 



A few years since, there was a fine old fig-tree at 

 the back of a house, in King-street, Covent-Garden. 

 The trunk has now been cut down to build a wall 



