1368 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART III. 



and produce abundant crops ; though the fruit is inferior in flavour to that 

 ripened against walls, except in very fine seasons. 



Properties and Uses. The fig is cultivated almost entirely for its fruit. 

 Its wood, which is extremely light and tender, is used, in France, for making 

 whetstones, from its facility in receiving and retaining the emery and the 

 oil that are employed to sharpen smiths' tools. The soft wood is white, and 

 the heart-wood yellow. It loses a great deal in weight by drying; but it 

 acquires by that process so much strength and elasticity, that the screws of 

 wine-presses are made of it. When used as fuel, it does not give a very 

 intense heat ; but its charcoal has the valuable property of consuming very 

 slowly. The fruit is esteemed demulcent and laxative ; and it has been long 

 used in domestic medicine as a poultice. King Hezekiah's boil was cured by 

 a lump or poultice of figs, applied according to the directions of Isaiah, and 

 which, Professor Burnet observes, is the first poultice that we read of in history. 

 In the Canaries, in Portugal, and in the Greek Archipelago, a kind of brandy 

 is distilled from fermented figs. The leaves and bark of the fig tree abound in 

 a milky acrid juice, which may be used as rennet, for raising blisters, and for 

 destroying warts. This milky juice containing caoutchouc, Indian rubber might 

 consequently be made from the common fig tree in England, if it were thought 

 desirable ; and, on account of the same property, the very tenderest of the 

 young leaves might be given to the larva of the silkmoth. All the species 

 of the genus l^icus, and also of the allied genus Carica, are said to have the 

 singular property of rendering raw meat tender when hung beneath their shade. 

 On what chemical principle this is to be accounted for, we are ignorant, 

 but the fact seems undoubted. As a fruit tree, the fig is valuable for thriving 

 and ripening fruit in situations not favourable in regard to light, air, or soil ; 

 such as against walls in court-yards, against the walls of houses in crowded 

 cities, on the back-walls of green-houses and forcing- houses, comparatively in 

 the shade, &c. It also bears better than any other fruit tree whatever, in 

 pots; and, with abundance of liquid manure and heat, will produce, in a stove, 

 three, and sometimes even four, crops in the course of a year. 



Culture and Management of the Fig in Countries where it is grown as an Article 

 of Commerce. In France, more particularly about Marseilles, when a fig 

 plantation is to be formed, an open situation is made choice of near the sea, and 

 exposed to the south and the east. The ground is trenched 2 ft. or 3 ft. deep, 

 and richly manured; and the trees are planted in squares, or in quincunx, at 

 from 12ft. to 15 ft. distance from each other. The plants are watered fre- 

 quently during the first summer, and left without any pruning whatever; but 

 in the winter of the second year they are cut down to the ground. The third 

 year, they throw up vigorous shoots, five or six of which are retained to form 

 a bush ; and in the following, or fourth, year the tree is suffered to ripen fruit. 

 In some cases, the trees are trained to single steins ; and this is generally the 

 case in Italy and Greece, where the climate is milder, and the tree attains a 

 larger size than in France. In the future management of the trees, they 

 require very little pruning, except when they get too much crowded with 

 branches. They seldom suffer from insects ; but always more or less, during 

 very hot summers, from the want of water, which they require in abundance, 

 on account of the excessive transpiration which takes place from their large 

 leaves and very porous bark, which has bat a very slight epidermis. Hence, in 

 seasons of very great drought, the branches are sometimes completely burnt 

 up. Severe frost has the same effect on the branches in winter, even at Mar- 

 seilles, as extreme drought has in summer. In the south of France, and in all 

 countries which may properly be called fig climates, two crops are produced 

 in a year : the first is from the old wood, and corresponds with our crops in 

 England; and the second from the wood of the current year, the figs pro- 

 duced by which, in this country, are never ripened except in hot-houses. In 

 Greece and Egypt a third crop is sometimes produced. The first crop is 

 ripened, in the south of France and in Italy, in May ; and the second crop in 

 September. Those which are to be dried are left on the tree till they are 



