344 FIG FAMILY. 



though some are very acrid, has the rind of the 

 bulb far more pungent than the bulb itself. 



The uses of the plants classed under the fig- 

 tribe, and those resembling it, are exceedingly 

 varied. Many of them, as has been stated, fur- 

 nish food, and many more from their active nature 

 are medicinal, and others form articles of clothing, 

 either through the medium of something else, or 

 directly. The white mulberry is the principal food 

 of those silk- worms which every year spin so great 

 a quantity of the most delicate, and also the most 

 beautiful substance which is employed in the loom. 

 The paper mulberry, which, if it does not agree 

 with the order in all particulars, (and the agree- 

 ment or disagreement of plants with an order or a 

 genus in any system, depends in a great measure 

 upon that system,) agrees with it in many, is used, 

 as the name imports, in the manufacture of paper, 

 and also of a species of paper cloth. The banyan 

 tree, or Indian fig, gives habitation to numbers of 

 the lac insect, (coccus lacca,) which furnishes the 

 gum lac of commerce, and no doubt elaborates it 

 out of the substance of the tree, in the same way 

 that bees elaborate wax out of the juices of many 

 plants. The wood of the yellow mulberry, (morus 

 tinctoria,) which is a native of the West India Is- 

 lands, and of Brazil, furnishes fustic, which is so 

 well known as a yellow dye : and there is little 

 doubt that many others of the family, especially 

 the cratons, the juice of some of which is of the 

 colour, and nearly the consistency of blood, would 

 form both dye, stuffs, and pigments. 



These particulars have been mentioned with a 

 view to show how much information, and how 

 1 



