92 FRUIT GARDEN. 
It is of the nature of the fig-tree to produce two sets of 
shoots and two crops of fruit in the season. The first 
shoots generally show young figs in July and August, but 
these in the English climate very seldom ripen. The late 
or midsummer shoots likewise put forth fruit-buds, which, 
however, do not develop themselves till the following 
spring, and then form the only crop of figs on which we can 
depend in Britain. 
Various modes of training fig-trees have been proposed. 
Mr. Lindley recommends the horizontal form. Mr. Knight 
carries up a central stem perpendicularly to the top of the 
wall, and then radiates the side-branches horizontally and 
pendently, in close contact with the wall. Luxuriance of 
growth is supposed thus to be checked, and the branches 
thrown into a bearing habit. The finest fig-trees which 
we have seen in Scotland are trained in the old fan form. 
The shoots are laid in, thinly, at full length, and en- 
couraged to extend themselves as fast as possible, precau- 
tion, however, being taken to leave no part of the tree bare 
of young wood. Much of the pruning is performed in 
summer by pinching off unnecessary shoots, and the knife 
is seldom employed, except in removing naked branches, or _ 
in cutting back to procure a supply of young wood. Some 
cultivators break off the points of the spring shoots, in or- 
der to produce laterals, but this must be done at an earlier 
period, not later perhaps than midsummer, otherwise the 
young shoots will not ripen. The Rev. G. Swayne recom- 
mends rubbing off all the young figs which appear in autumn 
on shoots of the same year, observing that for every young 
fig thus displaced the rudiments of one, or perhaps two 
others, are formed before winter, and developed in the fol- 
lowing year.* 
* It is a proverb in fig culture that ‘the more you prune the less you 
crop.” 
