FICUS, FIG TREE. 213 



granules or seeds are a quite dark red. 



This fig, very plentiful in autumn, does well in our climate in a warm year, and it 

 does exceptionally well in more temperate climates. 



Its variety that has long fruit, cultivated FIG TREE, with long purple fruit, 

 red inside. Inst, pear-fig, Bordeaux fig (PL II Fig. 2.) is about twenty -two lignes in 

 diameter & thirty-two lignes high. The top is quite round, both at its diameter and at its 

 end. The other end elongates into a very sharp point with an end near the stalk that 

 always is green, even when the fruit is ripe. Over all the rest of the fruit the skin is a deep 

 purple or red-brown with scattered small light green specks or long spots. Its small ridges 

 are very conspicuous. The underside of the skin is a very pale red. The inside of the fruit 

 is more tan than it is than red or purple. 



This fig is plentiful in both seasons. In warm years it's extremely sweet & quite 

 succulent but almost tasteless. 



CULTIVA TION. 



I. The seeds of our summer figs that are left on the tree after they ripen, and those 

 of sun-dried figs that come from our southern provinces & from abroad, are fertile. 

 They're sown in pots or trays filled with light, friable soil and placed in a compost bed. A 

 little soil is sieved over them so that they're very lightly covered with it. They germinate 

 very nicely, & the seedlings progress quite rapidly. But these seedlings are less suitable 

 for growing fig trees that yield fruit promptly than they are for obtaining varieties or 

 foreign species that are difficult to generate from the tree itself. 



Fig trees customarily are propagated by layering 



