FRUIT GARDEN. 271 



We have already suggested, in relation to other 

 trees, that their mode of bearing ought, in a great 

 degree, to regulate our method of pruning them; 

 nor is the remark more applicable to the apple or 

 the peach than to the fig tree. We need hardly in- 

 form the reader that this last blossoms twice in the 

 year ; first under the spring, and again under the 

 summer flow of the sap ; and, where the climate, 

 &c., is favourable, matures two crops in the season, 

 on two distinct sets of young shoots. Whence it fol- 

 lows that the management which shall tend most 

 directly to multiply shoots or bearers, is, in rela- 

 tion to this tree, that which is best. Now many 

 experiments show that, if you shorten a branch of 

 the fig-tree with a knife, the tree will exert itself 

 only to recover what it has lost ; and, of course, 

 that you will but have a single shoot instead of the 

 one you have removed : whereas, if you substitute 

 breaking for cutting, you will, instead of one, have 

 several shoots, and, consequently, a larger propor- 

 tion of fruit. Hence the rule, " to cut when you 

 want to lessen the bulk of the head, and to break at 

 ten, twelve, or fifteen inches from the stem, when 

 an increased quantity either of wood or of fruit is 

 your object." These remarks do not, however, su- 

 persede the more general rules for removing dead, 

 or diseased, or redundant branches, or for such 

 other use of the knife as may be necessary in giv- 

 ing form to the head; and the less so, as the plant 

 is among those which bear cutting without injury. 



Any soil not positively wet, provided it be annu- 

 ally dug and triannually manured with stable litter, 

 will suit the fig-tree. But a more laborious and ex- 

 pensive operation is necessary to protect it against 

 hard and frosty weather. With this view, the prac- 



encourages lateral shoots from a single stem, and trains them 

 horizontally, or even downward, close to the wall ; by which 

 he avoids a too great abundance of wood, matures that which 

 he retains, and escapes injury from frost. Hort. Trans., vol. 

 iii., p. 307. 



