Book I. 



FIG. 



759 



both insects, There are two or three kinds of cocci, or turtle insect, that sometimes 

 infest the vine, (Coccus hespendum and adonidum,) but they rarely do much injury in tlie 

 open air. 



4836. The blue fly (Musca vomitoria, Latr.) attacks the fruit when nearly ripe, before the wasp or 

 birds begin to devour it. Forsyth says, " As soon as it makes its appearance, you must provide 

 betimes plenty of bottles, a little more than half filled with some sweet liquor, to entice them to 

 enter and be drowned. Hang the bottles on the nails, at proper distances, all over the vines, and also 

 place some of them at the bottom of the wall." 



4837. The wasp (Fespa vulgaiis), and in some places the hornet {V. Crabro, fig, 506.), attacks the fruit 

 like the blue fly, and is to be destroyed in a similar manner ; or by tying up the bunches in gauze bags. 



'i^S^. Birds of various species, but chiefly the smaller kinds which may abound in the neighborhood, 

 also attack grapes. A few of them may be shot and hung up as scares ; or bagging may be adopted ; or 

 where there is a full regular crop over the wall, trellis, or standards, the trees may be protected by 

 netting or bunting. The latter will protect them also from the fly and wasp. 



SuBSECT. 3. Fig. — Ficiis Carica, L. {Trew. Ehret. t. 73, 4.) Poly gam. D'uec. L, 

 and Urticece, J. Figuier, Fr. ; Feigenbaum, Ger. ; and Figo or Fico, Ital. 



4839. The Jig-tree is a low tree, a native of Asia and Barbary ; naturalised in Italy 

 and the south of France, and enduring the open air in the mildest parts of Britain. The 

 fig-tree in France and Italy grows as large as our apple-trees, but in this country seldom 

 exceeds two yards in height ; the trunk is about the thickness of the human arm ; the 

 wood, porous and spongy ; the bark, ash-colored ; the branches smooth with oblong 

 white dots ; the leaves annual in Europe, but perennial within the tropics, cordate, 

 ovate, three or five lobed, thick, and the size of the hand. The fruit is a berry, turbinate 

 and hollow within ; produced chiefly on the upper part of the shoots of the former year, 

 in the axils of the leaves on small round peduncles. The flower is produced within the 

 fruit ; what is considered as the fruit being a common calyx or receptacle : the male 

 flowers are few, and inserted near the opening in the extremity of the receptacle, or 

 fruit; the female flowers are very numerous, and fill the rest of the hollow space within. 

 The greater part prove abortive, both with and without the process of caprification. The 

 fig forms an important article of culture in the isles and borders of the Mediterranean 

 sea, and especially in Greece, Italy, and Spain. It is also much cultivated for drying 

 in the south of France; and for the table, at Argenteuil, near Paris. The earliest 

 notice we have of its culture in England is by Turner in 1562. The first trees were 

 brought over from Italy by Cardinal Pole, in 1525, during the reign of Henry the 

 Eighth, and yet exist in the gardens of the archbishop at Lambeth. They are of the 

 white Marseilles kind, and still bear delicious fruit. They cover a space of fifty feet in 

 height, and forty in breadth; the circumference of the trunk of two of the trees is 

 twenty-eight, and of another twenty-one inches. In the severe winter of 1813-14, these 

 trees were greatly injured, and in consequence their principal stems were cut over near to 

 the ground ; but they are fast recovering. At Oxford, in the garden of the Regius 

 Professor of Hebrew, is a fig-tree, which was brought from Aleppo, and planted by Dr. 

 Pocock, in 1 643. It is in a thriving condition, and bears a black fig. Gerrard says, " the 

 fig requires a hot-wall ;" and Parkinson, that they are planted in great square tubs, to 

 be removed into the sun in the summer time, and into the house in winter. The culture 

 of the fig was little known here till the time of Miller, who introduced above a dozen 

 new sort^ from Italy. Pie observes, that the generality of Englishmen are not lovers of 

 this fruit, and that, therefore, few trouble themselves with the culture of it. Since 

 Miller's time, the fig has been introduced to the forcing department, and there cultivated 

 to a much higher degree of perfection than before on open walls ; and though it be still 

 true, that a taste for the fig in its green or fresh state is less prevalent in England than 

 elsewhere, yet, by those who have been some time abroad, it is generally much esteemed. 



4840. Monck " believes the fig-tree to be of all the fruit-trees which we cul- 

 tivate in our gardens, the least understood; but, to those who may have acquired a 

 knowledge of its habits, the most tractable. No tree is propagated more easily. I sent 

 from London in April last to Kelsay in Northumberland, two cuttings of figs. They 

 were so small as to travel by the post in a common letter-cover. I have gathered this 

 autumn from one of them three ripe figs, and two from the other. The fig-tree may be 

 checked in its useless habit of luxuriant growth by ringing, so as to become fruitful at a 

 very small size. It may be forced by heat and liquid manure, with copious irrigation, 

 so as to support an abundant crop of fruit, and bring them to perfection, to a greater 

 extent than any other tree. Spare branches of a large fig-tree growing out of doors may 

 be ringed, and surrounded by a small pot of earth, into which they will speedily strike 

 root, so as to bear being separated in autumn from the tree ; and they may be used to 

 furnish any glass houses with trees to bear fruit through the next summer. I believe, too, 

 that the fig-tree may be easily propagated by inoculation, if that should be desired." 

 (Hort. Trans, v. 173.) 



4841. Use. It is cultivated here entirely for the dessert; but in fig- countries it is 

 eaten green or dried, fried or stewed, and in various ways, with or without bread or 

 meat, as food. Abroad the fig is introduced during dinner, as well as at the dessert. 



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