THE FIG. 



195 



recommend that every alternate lateral be pruned back 

 to an eye, at &, as is generally practised with the vine. 

 The other shoots are left as the summer pinching is 

 supposed to have left them, and will, if well ripened 

 and short-jointed, produce a fig at every bud, especi- 

 ally those near their tops. Those cut back may form 

 more than one eye ; when this is the case, all should 

 be rubbed off but one, to be stopped by pinching or 

 bruising its point, when it has grown to from five to 

 seven joints, after which stopping it very soon forces 

 fruit from the axils of the leaves, which fruit ripens in 

 autumn. All attempts at fresh growth beyond these 

 autumn fruits should be rubbed off as they make their 

 appearance. In the case of the previous year's wood, 

 bearing the first or early crop, a couple of joints of 

 young growth is all that should be allowed. In the 

 case of a well-established tree, with its roots thorough- 

 ly under control, and in a fertile state, this system of 

 pruning and summer pinching, it can easily be seen, 

 directs the efforts of the plant to the production of 

 fruit, and only as much young wood as is necessary 

 for next season's crop. The young wood produced 

 this summer is that on which next season's early crop 

 is produced, so that the early fruit-bearing wood is 

 that which in the winter pruning is spurred back 

 i.e., shoot 6 is cut back this year, and shoot a the next. 

 The fig can thus be systematically pruned without 

 the too common confusion of a lot of haphazard growths 

 in all directions, either to be lopped off with the knife, 

 causing unnecessary wounds and bleeding, or to be tied 

 up in confused unmeaning bundles, serving no purpose 

 whatever. A little trouble and attention in the way of 

 directing the summer growths to form trees thus into 

 cordon, or horizontal leaders, with lateral fruit-bearing 



