FIG-TREE. 89' 



Any person having a green-house for the protection 

 of tender plants and exotics, can, with little or no ad- 

 ditional expense, manage to make it secure him every 

 year a crop of the finest kinds of foreign grapes. The 

 vines may be planted outside near the front wall, in 

 the lower part of which openings are to be left in the 

 brick or wood-work, to permit the vines to be passed in 

 or drawn out. As soon as the weather will admit the 

 plants to be exposed to the open air, the vines may be 

 passed into the house and attached to the rafters or 

 other supports, where they are to be trained and treated 

 according to the rules laid down for their management. 

 In the fall, the ripe grapes may be taken off, the vines 

 trimmed, withdrawn from the house, and properly 

 bound up and secured against the frosts of winter. 

 Meantime, the hot-house plants are enjoying their ap- 

 propriate places of protection. 



Much useful information relating to the proper 

 management of vines in graperies will be found under 

 the head of Pruniyig and Training^ when describing 

 the operations of the forcing garden. 



The Fig-Tree (Ficus Carica) is not a great favorite 

 in Britain, the fresh fruit not being much relished, 

 and the tables being supplied with a vast abundance of 

 dried figs imported from the Mediterranean couatries. 

 Every good garden ought, however, to contain a few 

 trees, to furnish an occasional dish; and we doubt not 

 that the fresh fruit, if it were more common and better 

 grown, would be more liked. The foliage of the tree is 

 large and elegant, aud the mode of fructification is 

 curious : the pulpy part, which we call the fruit, being. 



