in Extra-Tropical Countries. 157 



(Willdenow) is a form particularly recommended by Wessely for 

 sand-soil. Chemical analysis, made very late in spring, gave the 

 folio wing results: Albumen 1'86, gluten 8-16, starch 1*45, gum 2*14, 

 sugar 5*05 per cent. (F. v. Mueller and L. Rummel). 



Festuca purpurea, F. v. Mueller. ( Uralepls purpurea, Nuttall ; Tricuspis 

 purpurea, A. Gray. ) 



South-Eastern coast of North- America. A tufty sand-grass, but 

 annual. 



Festuca silvatica, Villars. . ' 



Middle and Southern Europe. A notable forest-grass. F. dry- 

 meia (Mertens and Koch), a grass with long creeping roots, is closely 

 allied. Both deserve test-culture. Space does not admit of entering 

 here into further details of- the respective values of many species of 

 Festuca, which might advantageously be introduced from various 

 parts of the globe for rural purposes. 



Ficus Carica, Linne". 



- The ordinary Fig-tree. Alph. de Candolle speaks of it as spon- 

 taneous from Syria to the Canary-Islands; Count Solms-Laubach 



. confines the nativity of the Fig-tree to the countries on the Persian 

 Gulf. It attains an age of several hundred years. In warm temperate 

 latitudes and climes a prolific tree. The most useful and at the same 

 time the most hardy of half a thousand recorded species of Ficus. 

 The extreme facility, with which it can be propagated from cuttings, 

 the resistance to heat, the comparatively early yield and easy culture 

 recommend the Fig-tree, where it is an object to raise masses of tree- 

 vegetation in widely treeless lands of the warmer zones for shade and 

 fruit. Hence the extensive plantations of this tree made in formerly 

 woodless parts of Egypt; hence the likelihood of choosing the Fig as 

 one of the trees for extensive planting through favorable portions of 

 desert-waste, where moreover the fruit could be dried with particular 

 ease. Small cuttings went quite well chiefly by horse-post from Port 

 Phillip to the central Australian Mission-stations, a distance as far 

 as from Petersburg to the Black Sea, or from Bombay to Thibet, 

 or from Capetown to Lake Ngami, or from San Francisco to the 

 Upper Missouri. Fig-trees can be grown even on sand-lands, at least 

 as observed on the Australian south-coast. In Greece the average 

 yield of figs per acre is about 1,600 Ibs. (Simmonds). Caprification 

 is unnecessary, even in some instances injurious and objectionable. 

 Two main-varieties may be distinguished: that which produces two 

 crops a year, and that which yields but one. The former includes 

 the Gray or Purple Fig, which is the best, the White Fig and the 

 Golden Fig, the latter being the finest in appearance, but not in 

 quality. The main-variety, which bears only one crop a year, supplies 

 the greatest quantity of figs for drying, among which the Marseil- 

 laise and Bellonne are considered the best. The Barnisote and the 

 Aubique produce delicious large fruits, but they must be dried with 

 fire-heat, and are usually consumed fresh. The ordinary drying is 



