165 



and planted them himself. The soil of the 

 garden is a deep black loam on chalk. 



The trees are but seldom and sparingly 

 pruned, which I conclude is the cause of their 

 being so prolific, as I have remarked that fig- 

 trees rarely produce much fruit where the 

 knife is regularly used. When they grow 

 too luxuriantly, it has been found better to 

 destroy a part of their roots, and to fill up the 

 space with stones or broken bricks, than to 

 prune the branches too much. Mr. Knight, 

 the president of the Horticultural Society, 

 observes, that there cannot be a more defec- 

 tive manner of cultivating the fig-tree than 

 that which is generally practised by gardeners, 

 of training them against walls, with their 

 branches perpendicular upwards; the wood, 

 by this means, becomes too luxuriant to pro- 

 duce fruit. 



The ancients believed that there existed a 

 sympathy between plants, and they therefore 

 planted rue near their fig-trees, which was 

 said to make the fruit sweeter; and that the 

 rue not only grew more luxuriantly, but more 

 bitter, by being thus neighboured by the fig- 

 tree. I think this is very probable, without 

 having any thing to do with sympathy, as 

 trees and plants will naturally draw juices 

 from the earth most congenial tc their nature: 



