344 



AjrEEICAN HOME GARDEN. 



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rig- 214. ^ little faiiitness of flavor, 



which renders it less de- 

 sirable than it might 

 otherwise be, so that its 

 cultiu'e, where it can not 

 be profitably dried for 

 market, is a matter of 

 mere fancy, except for 

 persons of peculiar taste. 

 Unlike other fruits, the 

 fig is not produced from 

 any apparent blossom, 

 but is borne, generally 

 singly, upon the young 

 branches, the flower be- 

 ing included in and form- 

 ing part of the fruit. 

 The filaments which constitute the flower, or, more properly, 

 the floral organs, arc readily seen in the fresh-gathered fruit, 

 and sometimes also in the thick-skinned, imperfectly-ripened, 

 dried figs of commerce. 



It is said that in certain districts of France the fruit is 

 sometimes anointed in the eye with sweet oil, when near ma- 

 turity, to secm-e its ripening, and Downing seems to think the 

 operation effective to this end ; Ijut in the absence of any ap- 

 parent connection, we doubt if they are cause and effect. Where 

 practiced, it is probably an old custom, of which the origin has 

 been forgotten and a new account of it invented. 



The fig-tree is easily raised from offshoots, layers, or cut- 

 tings, and will grow in almost any soil. The choicer varieties 

 are the Brunswick, or Black Naples ; the Brown Turkey, or 

 Naples ; the Black Ischia, the Black Genoa, the Malta, the 

 White Marseilles, the Nerii, and the White Ischia. 



The Egyptian fig, or sycamore fruit of the Bible, sometimes 

 also called " Pharaoh's Fig," and, from its leaf, " Mulben-y 

 Fig," is not, in strictness, a frait, but a seedless excrescence 

 which forms upon the trunk and large limbs of a wild lowland 

 tree of the East. It is either thrown out naturally by the tree. 



