HORTICULTURE. 



221 



Fruit it ; the in*ide bright red ; the pulp high flavoured. It 

 Csrfsa ripens from the middle to the end of August, and the 

 * tree is a good bearer. 



U'hile Genoa it a large, almost globular fruit, of 

 jaod flavour ; the akin thin, of a yellowish colour when 

 ripe, and light red within. The tree is considered as 

 rather a shy bearer. 



The Small Early White has a sweet pulp, but with- 

 out mack flavour. It ripens early, and is therefore 

 well suited to our flinfi** : indeed it seldom fails to pro- 

 duce a crop. 



The Malta fy is a small brown fruit ; the pulp sweet, 

 and well flavoured. When permitted to hang on the 

 tree till it be shrivelled, it forms a fine sweetmeat. 



The Murrey jig, or brownish-red Naples fig, is a 

 large globular shaped fruit, of pretty good flavour ; it 

 -anguished by the murrey-coloured skin. It ripens 

 .ntember. 



The Common Blue or purple fig is of an oblong shape ; 

 the tree is a copious bearer ; and the fruit ripens in the 

 end of August. 



The ttnmiticlt, or Madonna, is along pyramidal flg; 

 the skin brown, the pulp with little flavour. Like the 

 common blue, it is an early kind, and in this respect 

 suited to Britain. 



The Brown Italian it a snail roundish fig, of high 

 flavour ; the skin becoming of a brown colour when 

 the fruit is ri|* ; the inside red. The tree is a great 



ongea 011 i jecemoer. n may nere ne rema 

 the fig in a green or fresh state, being a scare 

 this country, i* often cut into lasMJIailinil sli 

 deawrt : a good deal of the flaveur is thus lose 



The BUck Italian fig i* likewise small and roundish; 

 the pulp high flavoured, and of a dark red colour; the 

 skin purple. The tree bears freely. 



14*. In this country, ig traaa require good walls, 

 with sooth aaat, sooth, or south-wcat aspects, and they 

 occupy a good deal of space. It is proper, therefore, to 

 select only such kind* as are likely to be productive, 

 iMiflj the (bur first enumerated. The trees likewise 

 require careful management. Britain is certainly not 

 the country for fig-trees ; yet with due attention, fresh 

 fig* matured on the open walls, may grace the dessert 

 Awn the aaiddie of August to the end of October ; and, 

 by means of a fig-house, or even of dwarf fig-tree* 

 planted in front of a vinery, the season may be pro- 

 longed till December. It may her* be remarked, that 



i scarce fruit in 

 [slice* at the 



good deal of the fiaveur'is thus lost Abroad, 

 the parson who eats a fig, bold* it by the email and, 

 and making a circular cut at the large and, peel* down 

 the thick skin of the fruit in flake*, the soft interior part 

 funning only a tingle Aonnr kouctir. 



AMabfeUaaysoilubestforf^tnaa. French wri- 

 ters racoranund light and poor soil, even sandy and 

 gravelly ; but in such situation* in this country the 

 tree doe* not succeed ; and in any very dry sod the 

 truit is apt to (all off. If however the soil be otherwise 

 good, the recurrence of this last inconvenience may in 

 general be prevented by watering and mmlcking. A 

 Tee t MM,* irr to air mid u:i :. uidi-jx-ii-.Ji'.i- t, the |*T- 

 tt< t...ii i,| the Iruit 



In the public nurserie*. fig-tree* are often pro. 

 by suckers, and n*jsliiiiis by cutting*. The 

 . . i are taken off in autumn, tunk in the ground, 

 and protected with old bark and haulm during winter. 

 r cuttings nor suckers furm nearly so good tree* 

 a* those procured by layer*, provided the layers be 

 formed of bearing branches. Indeed a single plant 

 thus procured, by layering, from a tree in a full bear. 



ing state, and from the bearing wood of such a tree, is 

 worth many others. 



In general a young fig-tree is at first trained with p. 

 three branches, nearly upright, this direction encoura- 

 ging their rapid growth. If horizontal training be 

 adopted, the two outer branches are afterward laid 

 down horizontally, and from these upright branches 

 ire suffered to rise, at the distance of a foot or sixteen 

 inches from each other. From the central shoot other 

 shoots spring, and these are successively laid in hori- 

 zontally at the distance perhaps of two feet from each 

 other. The mode of training, however, generally 

 adopted in this country, and approved ly the beet 

 gardeners, is the fan-shape ; keeping the outer branches 

 nearly horizontal, so as to allow ample space for laying 

 in the central ones. In some instances they are trained 

 in the Dutch mode, with only two low horizontals, and 

 upright shoots from these. In a few places in England, 

 fig-trees are trained to espalier- rails. Sometimes thaw 

 tree* are untied, and, during the severity of winter, 

 the branches are laid close to the ground in bundles, 

 and well covered with straw or haulm, over which some 

 earth is heaped. Another method of protecting them, 

 employed both in England and France, is the erect- 

 ing of two screens of reeds, one on each side of t de- 

 rail. 



144. The fruit proceeds immediately from the eyes 

 of the shoots, without visible blossom ; indeed the parts 

 of fructification are entirely within. In warm coun- 

 tries two crops are produced yearly, one upon the for- 

 mer year's shoots, and another on the shoots of the 

 same year. In this country the first of these crops is 

 the only one to be depended on ; the second often 

 makes its appearance, but the figs are little larger than 

 peas when arrested by the cold of approaching winter. 

 Some gardeners direct that these young fruit be care- 

 fully swept frutn the branches at the winter's dressing; 

 but a more cautious observer, Mr Smith at Hopetoun 

 House, has found that, while he frees the trees of all 

 half-ripened fruit, if he can save the very young fruit 

 over winter, they afford, as might be expected, the 

 earliest figs in the following season. While the fruit 

 is ripening, such leaves as cover it, should be braced 

 to the wall with small cross- sticks, and not cut off as is 



..nu t:uir^ dune. 



145. In pruning fig-trees, the shoots of the former 

 year must not be shortened, the fruit being produced 

 at the upper part of thest. When a branch become* 

 naked, or destitute of lateral, some advise the cutting 

 it entirely out from the base ; but if it be thortenad, 

 plenty of young shoots will in general be the result. 

 Nicnl remarks, that the most fruitful shoots are short - 

 jointed, round, and not of length proportional to tin ir 

 thickness. The time usually chosen for pruning, ia 

 April or early in May ; but some gardeners still prefer 

 the autumn, a* recommended by Miller, when less sap 

 issues from the woundcd^parts. 



In preparing the trees for winter, the brant-lie* 

 are closely nailed to the wall; and when frost ;i|>- 

 proaches, coverings of bats-mat, straw-screens, or some 

 uch means of defence, are employed. Perhaps the 

 beat mode of protecting them, is described by Mr 

 Smith, in the second volume of Scottish Horticultural 

 Memoirs. He recommends the use of spruce- fir 

 branches, four or five feet long ; these are fastened to 

 the wall, each branch by two different points of at- 

 tachment ; and the tree is thus covered a* equally an 

 possible. The iprucc-fir possesses this advantage, that 



Prtu't 

 Garden. 



