568 



PRACTICE OF GARDENING. 



Pakt III. 



or scaly insect ; which is destroyed by washing with soap-suds and sulphur : or the 

 Hquor recommended for destroying that insect on pines. (ICal. 319.) 



3158. Gathering the fruit. Figs begun to be forced in January, Nicol states, wiU be 

 ripe about the end of June and July. " If fig-trees in a forcing-house," Miller ob- 

 serves, " are properly managed, the first crop of fruit will be greater than upon those 

 which are exposed to the open air, and will ripen six weeks or two months earlier, and a 

 plentiful second crop may also be obtained, which will ripen early in September." To 

 preserve the bloom, gather with the peach-gatherer. They may be preserved a short 

 time on the trees, by covering with mats from the sun, and admitting abundance of air 

 among the branches. This alludes to what is called the second crop, or that produced 

 from the wood of the current year. Sometimes a few of the first crop ripen, but in 

 general it is not to be relied on. Alton, Sir Joseph Banks informs us {Hort. Trans, i. 

 253.), " has for several years practised the forcing of figs in the royal gardens of Kew, 

 with great success, and his chief dependence is on the second crop." 



3159. Exposure of the wood. After the fruit is gathered, the glasses may be removed, 

 till winter sets in, when they must either be put on, or the trees covered with mats or 

 straw, to protect them from the frost. 



3160. Forcing the fig in pots. M'Phail says, figs may be ripened at an early season, 

 by planting them in pots, and setting them into a hot-house or forcing-house. " The 

 plants should be low and bushy, so that they may stand on the curb of the tan-bed, or 

 they may be plunged in a gentle tan-heat, or in a bed of leaves of trees. The best way 

 to propagate plants for this purpose is to take layers or slips which have good roots : plant 

 them in pots in good earth, one plant in each pot, and plunge them in a bed of tan or of 

 leaves of trees, in which is a very gentle heat : a brick bed will answer the purpose very 

 well ; or they will do in the forcing-house, if there be room for them. Let them be put 

 into the house in the latter end of February or beginning of March, and keep them suffi- 

 ciently watered. Wlien they are two years old, they will be able to bear fruit ; the pots, 

 in that time having become full of roots. In the month of November or December, turn 

 tlie plants out of the pots, and with a sharp knife pare ofi' the outside of the ball, by which 

 the plant will be divested of its roots matted against the inside of the pot : then place 

 them into larger pots, filling up the vacancy round the balls with strong loamy earth. 

 During the winter, let them be kept in the green-house, or in a glazed pit of a like tem- 

 perature, till the month of February ; then set them into the forcing-house, where it is 

 intended they shall ripen their fruit. In this manner let them be treated every year, 

 which will be a means of preventing the fruit from falling off before it come to matu- 

 rity." (G. Rem.) Nicol says, fig-trees kept in pots or tubs, may be treated very much 

 as directed for cherries. Two dozen, or thirty plants, would be a good stock for that 

 purpose. The first division might be placed in a cherry or peach-house about the middle 

 or latter end of January. {Malendnr, 319.) 



3161. Culture of the fig-tree in the stove. The fig formed one of the different species 

 "of trees which Knight subjected to a very high temperature during bright weather, and a 



comparatively low temperature during the night. (Hbri. Trans, iii. 459. 1212.) 



3162. The targe white fig-tree succeeded perfectly, " just ripening its spring figs, (those which usjally 

 ripen in the open air in this country), and afterwards its summer figs. The trees then produced new 

 leaves and branches; and the fruit, which would have appeared in the next spring, ripened in high per- 

 fection in September. Subsequently also, a few of those, which, in the ordinary course of the growth of 

 the tree, would have appeared as the summer crop of next year, have ripened, and these, though inferior 

 to those of the preceding crops, have not been without merit." At the time this communication was 

 made, this fourth crop was only beginning to ripen, and was thought of inferior quality : but Knight 

 informs us, in a subsequent communication (read July 18. 1820), that " the subsequent portion of it 

 proved most excellent ; and some figs which were gathered upon Christmas-day, were thought by myself, 

 and a friend who was with me, much the best we had ever tasted. The same plants have since ripened 

 four more crops, being eight within twelve months ; and upon a ringed branch of one year old, and about 

 an inch in diameter, a ninth crop, consisting of sixty figs, will ripen within the next month. I possess only 

 two plants, each growing in a pot, which contains something less than fourteen square inches of mould, 

 and occupying together a space equal to about sixty-four square feet of the back wall of my pine-stove : 

 from which space the number of figs that have been gathered within twelve months has been little, if any, 

 less than 300 : and I see every prospect of a succession of crops till winter. I therefore send the following 

 account of the mode of culture, which has been employed, in the hope that it may prove useful to those 

 who are sufficiently admirers of the fig, to think it deserving a place in the forcing-house. My trees 

 grow, as I have stated in the communication to which I have above alluded, in exceedingly rich mould, 

 and are most abundantly supplied with water, which holds much manure in solution. They consequently 

 shoot with great vigor, notwithstanding the small space to which their roots are confined; and they re- 

 quire some attention to restrain them within the limits assigned to them ; but I have found the following 

 mode of treatment perfectly efficient and successful. Whenever a branch appears to be extending with 

 too much luxuriance, its point, at the tenth or twelfth leaf, is pressed between the finger and thumb* 

 without letting the nails come in contact with the bark, till the soft succulent substance is felt to yield to 

 the pressure. Such branch, in consequence, ceases subsequently to elongate ; and the sap is repulsed to be 

 expended where it is more wanted. A fruit ripens at the base of each leaf, and during the period in 

 which the fruit is ripening, one or more of the lateral buds shoots, and is subsequently subjected to the 

 same treatment, with the same result. When I have suffered such shoots to extend freely to their natural 

 length, I have found that a small part of them only became productive, either in the same, or the ensuing 

 season, though I have seen that their buds obviously contained blossoms. I made several experiments 

 to obtain fruit in the follov;ing spring from other parts of such branches, which were not successful : 

 but I ultimately found that bending these branches, as far as could be done without danger of breaking 

 them, rendered them extremely fruitful ; and in the present spring, thirteen figs ripened perfectly upon a 



