430 Transactions of the London Horticultural Society. 



than 4 in. or 5 in. apart, or they will not be sufficiently thick to cover the 

 ground from being seen. 



" So treated, beds may be obtained in the flower garden in November and the 

 early part of December, of great brilliancy, provided the following sorts are 

 made use of, and planted in the following manner : — 



" 1. Tasselled yellow, 2. quilled white, 3. small yellow, 4. rose or pink, 5. 

 golden lotus-flowered, 6. changeable white, 7. changeable pale buff", 8. purple, 

 9. earl}' blush, 10, Spanish brown, II. pale pink, 12. superb clustered yellow, 

 13. buff or orange, 14. Park's small yellow. 



" They must be watered freely for the first two months, and occasionally 

 with liquid manure ; if the bed is covered over with about 1 in. thick of very 

 rotten dung, the luxuriance of the plants, as well as the size and beauty of their 

 flowers, will be increased." 



49. Vfon the Cultivation of the Fig Tree. In a Letter to the Secre- 

 tary. By Sir C. M. L. Monck, Bart., F.H.S., of Belsay, Northum- 

 berland. Read Feb. 5. 1833. 



After describing his fig-house, the author proceeds as follows : — 

 " My gardener wrote me word this spring, whilst I was absent in London, 

 that the trees had put forth only a scanty crop of spring figs, I returned him 

 direction to water the borders freely, and force with a strong heat ; and that 

 when the trees, in consequence, should have broken out into rapid growth, he 

 should stop the shoots at the seventh or eighth eye. In about a month's time 

 after this, he sent me word that the trees had begun to produce an abundant 

 crop of figs from the eyes of the new wood which had been stopped. Five or 

 six weeks subsequently, I returned home, and found the trees in luxuriant 

 gi'owth ; but most of the fruit on the stopped wood was turning yellow; some 

 had dropped, and much more of it was nearly ready to drop. On consider- 

 ation of what might be the cause of this disappointment, it appeared to me that 

 the high temperature, with a plentiful watering and rich soil, had excited a 

 luxuriant growth of wood, to which the sap had been diverted, and the fruit, in 

 consequence, was starving. To remedy this, I directed all the fruitful branches 

 to be ringed. In five or six days after this had been done, it became evident 

 that the growth of wood was checked; and, what surprised me, and is the 

 cause of my making this communication, the fruit, which had only begun to 

 turn yellow, or had only turned partially so, recovered its green colour, and 

 ripened. I observed that some of the fruit which had not begun to turn yellow, 

 when the branches were ringed, became full-sized when ripe : the others more 

 or less so, in proportion, apparently, as they had become more or less yellow, 

 and, therefore, more or less certain to drop. It is to these particulars that I 

 wish to direct attention. The fig is, except in the particular of bearing its 

 flowers internally, similar in the structure of its fructification to the compound 

 flowers, such as daisies, sunflowers, chrysanthemums ; and the course of flower- 

 ing, in most of such plants, is, for the florets next the edge of the disk to be the 

 first expanded, and afterwards the inner circles of florets in succession from the 

 edge to the centre. 1 take the fig to do the same ; and the supposition is con- 

 firmed by this, that the fruit, in ripening, begins at the eye, and proceeds to- 

 wards the stalk. I therefore conjecture that, when the fruit begins to show 

 yellowness, the florets within have been in part expanded, and failed to set, 

 and that, as the failure proceeds, the yellowness becomes more general, till all 

 have failed, and then the fruit drops : but if, when some certain proportion, 

 perhaps half and more, may have failed, the tree, by any treatment, such as in- 

 creased temperature, with sun, and diminution of supply of moisture to the root, 

 or ringing, or caprifaction (as practised in the Levant), is induced to set any 

 florets, the fruit, the common receptacle, is no longer in progress to inutility, 

 but becomes necessary to maintain the fertilised florets : it must therefore 

 cease to turn yellow, and recover greenness, which, as I have described, was- the 

 case with my trees. 



