2O4 Fig Culture and Protection. 



in several slightly different stages of ripeness, and witn several 

 varieties. If by its means we can succeed in keeping the most 

 delicious of all our fruits a few weeks longer than at present, I shall 

 have reason to remember with pleasure my few minutes' chance 

 conversation with the French sportsman. 



FIG CULTURE AND PROTECTION. Although I have omitted to 

 speak of some perhaps more important matters, one phase of Parisian 

 Fig-culture must be alluded to, more as an illustration of patient 

 and successful guarding against difficulties of climate than anything 

 else. The trees are trained in long sweeping shoots pretty near the 

 ground, and in such a form that they may be readily interred in the 

 ground when the winter and its dangers come. Figs. 62 and 63 

 represent the aspect of such trees on level ground. I will not enter 

 into the details of the culture, but simply show how this style of 

 Fig-tree is protected, and how adapted to sloping ground. The 



FIG. 62. 



frosts are often of great severity in the neighbourhood of Paris j so 

 great indeed that the Fig would have little or no chance if left ex- 

 posed. So in autumn the sagacious cultivators throw the branches 

 into four bundles, make a little trench for each, and cover as shown 

 by Fig. 64, with small sloping banks of earth, protecting the crown 

 of the root by means of a little cone of earth, which merges gra- 

 dually into the four little ridges that protect the branches. How- 

 ever, all this is shown in the accompanying figure. 



When the plantation is made on deeply inclined ground a some- 

 what different system is followed. The modification is shown by 



