THE FIG. 



357 



the fig was an object of contempt. "Figo for 

 thy friendship," says Pistol. Stevens, the com- 

 mentator on Sliakspear, tliinks that the "fig of 

 Spain," mentioned in many of our old poets, al- 

 luded "to the custom of giving poisoned figs to 

 those who were the objects of Spanish or Italian 

 revenge;" and lience, probably, a vulgar preju- 

 dice against the fruit. We have, however, old 

 trees still remaining in some gardens, which bear 

 good crops. These are generally trained against 

 walls; but fig trees have also been planted as 

 standards hero with success. We shall mention 

 a few instances of each case. 



The fig tree is said to have been first brought 

 into England, in 1525, by Cardinal Pole; though 

 ])robably it was introduced before, both by the 

 Romans and the monks. The specimens came 

 from Ital_y, and are still in the archbishop's gar- 

 dens at Lambeth. They are of the white Mar- 

 seilles kind, and bear excellent fruit. In the 

 course of theirlongexistence, they have attained 

 a size far exceeding the standard fig tree in its 

 native situations. They cover a space of fifty 

 feet in height, and forty in breadth. The trunk 

 of the one is twenty-eight, and the other twenty- 

 one inches in circumference. In the severe winter 

 of 1813-14, those venerable trees were greatly 

 injured; and, in consequence of the injury, it 

 was found necessary to cut the principal stems 

 down nearly to the ground; but the vegetative 

 powers of the roots remained unimpaired, and 

 they are shooting up with great vigour. 



In the garden of the manor-house at Mitcham, 

 which was formerly the private estate of arch- 

 bishop Cranmer, there was another fig tree of the 

 Bame sort, which is generally understood to have 

 been planted by that prelate. It was low, com- 

 pared with the trees at Lambeth, but had a thicker 

 stem. It was destroyed some time before the 

 close of the last century. 



Another celebrated fig tree was in the Dean's 

 garden at Winchester. It bore a small red fig, 

 and was in a healthy state in the year 1757. It 

 was inclosed in a wooden frame, which had a 

 glass door, with two windows on each side, by 

 which the sun and air were admitted, while the 

 frame protected it from the wind and rain. On 

 the stone wall to which the tree was nailed, 

 there were several inscriptions; and, among the 

 rest, one which mentioned that, in the year 162.3, 

 King James I. " tasted the fruit of this tree with 

 great pleasure." That tree also has been de- 

 stroyed. 



A few years since, there was a fine old fig tree 

 at the back of a house, in King street, Covent 

 Garden. The trunk has now been cut down to 

 build a wall where it grew; but shoots are spring- 

 ing up from the root. This tree was doubtless 

 one of the Convent garden; which, in the reign 

 of Elizabeth, bounded the Strand, on the north, 

 extending from St :Martin's lane to Dniry lane, 



these two lanes being the only approaches to the 

 neighbouring village of St Giles. 



The poeock fig tree is one of the most cele- 

 brated in this country, and was once supposed to 

 have been the first of the white Marseilles figs 

 introduced into England. The tradition is, that 

 it was brought from Aleppo by Dr Pocock, the 

 celebrated traveller, and planted in the garden of 

 the Regius professor of Hebrew at Christ Church, 

 Oxford, in the year 1648. An extract from a 

 communication by Mr William Baxter, curator 

 of the Botanical Garden at Oxford, read before 

 the Horticultural Society in 1819, contains the 

 latest history of this tree. It received consider- 

 able damage from the fire that happened at Christ 

 Church on the 3rd of March, 1809: till that 

 time, the large trunk mentioned liy Dr John 

 Sibthorpe, in Martyn's edition of Miller's Gar- 

 dener's Dictionary, remained. In order to pre- 

 serve it from the injuries of the weather, this 

 trunk had been covered with lead; but at the 

 time of the fire the lead was stolon, and, soon 

 after, the trunk itself decayed, and was removed. 

 The tree in 1819 was in a very flourishing state. 

 There are some remains of the old trunk to be 

 seen a few inches above the surface of the ground. 

 The branches then growing were not more than 

 eight or ten years old; but those in the middle 

 of the tree were twenty-one feet high. 



It is probable that standard fig trees were for- 

 merly much more common in this country than 

 at present. Bradley, an old -ivi-iter on agricul- 

 ture, mentions an ancient fig tree at Windsor, 

 which grew in a gravel pit, and bore many 

 bushels every year, without any pains being 

 bestowed upon it. 



In the fourth volume of the Horticultural 

 Transactions, there is a very interesting account, 

 by Mr Sabine, of some standard fig trees in the 

 garden of a cottage at Compton, near Worthing, 

 in Sussex. The garden in which they stand 

 slopes gently to the south, is protected on the 

 north by a thick grove of apple and plum trees, 

 and the climate is very mild. "The number of 

 the fig trees," says Mr Sabine, "is fourteen; they 

 occupy the principal part of the garden, which 

 is very small, and are in perfect health; their 

 average height is about ten feet; and, if any of 

 the larger ones were detached, they would cover 

 a space of twelve feet in diameter. Their stems 

 are not largo : the plants are bushes rather than 

 trees, for the branches spread in all directions 

 from the root. These are propped up by stakes, 

 but many of them are suffered to hang near the 

 ground." Mr Kennard, to whom they belonged, 

 informed Mr Sabine, that though the quality 

 ■varied, there alwaj-s was a crop; that the figs 

 began to ripen in the end of August, or begin- 

 ning of September, and continued during Oc- 

 tober; that the crop was generally from the spring 

 figs, though occasionally a few of the autumn 



