254 HORTICULTURAL OBSERVATIONS FROM FRENCH AUTHORS. 



The fiuit Peaches are never eaten in perfection if suffered to ripen on 



should not i i • 



ripen on the the tree ; they should be gathered just before they are quite 



^^^^' soft, and kept at least twenty-four hours in the fruit chamber. 



Figs. 



Figs cultivated The inhabitants of Argenteuil, near Paris, derive their chief 

 at Argenteuil. support from the culture of ^^ trees ; near that tov^rn are im- 

 mense fields covered with these trees, on the sides of hills 

 facing the South, and in other places sheltered from the North 

 and the North-west winds. 

 The branches I" ^he autumn the earth about the roots of these trees is 

 buried to pro- stirred and dug ; as soon as the frosts commence, the gardeners 

 frost. ^^"'^ down the branches, and bury them under six inches of 



mould, which is sufficient to preserve them from being frozen. 

 The branches must be entirely stripped of their leaves 

 before this is done ; the gardener then, taking hold of the top 

 of each branch, bends it down gradually, and with much care, 

 to prevent its breaking, placing his knee or his hand under 

 such parts as resist the most j the branches that will not bend 

 low enough to be buried are cut off close to the ground, 



A fig-tree will remain buried in this manner seventy-five or 

 eighty days without harm ; when the season is mild, the gar- 

 • deners uncover them, especially in times of warm rains, but 

 on the first symptoms of frost they are again buried. Severe 

 frosts sometimes reach them, but the branches only are de- 

 stroyed. The roots produce a new crop in the summer ; but; 

 these do not bear fruit till the next year, and are more tender 

 and liable to be lulled by frost during the next winter, than 

 older and more woody branches. 

 Leaf buds I" t^^e spring the trees are carefully inspected ; and where a 



pinched out double bud is observed, the gardeners, who are able to distin- 

 buds. guish a leaf-bud, which is more sliarp, from a fruit-bud, 



which is rounder, pinch out the leaf-buds without hurting the 

 fruit-buds ', these, as they receive the sap prepared by ithe 

 plant for two purposes, produce fruit of double the ordinary 

 size J this is done at Paris between the first and the tenth of 

 June ; but these leaf-buds may be suflfered to expand a little, 

 till they can be distinguished with certainty ; they must not be 

 all destroyed at the same time. In cool .seasons, the ripening 



of 



