78 On the Culture of Fig Trees in the open air. 



at the ensuing winter pruning, and that one eye, at least, be 

 left uninjured by the fracture ; and always preserving a quan- 

 tity unbroken, sufficient to keep up a future supply of bran- 

 ches and wood.* The shoot may be either broken short off, 

 or left suspended by a few ragged filaments, which may after- 

 wards be separated with a knife, when the spring sap had 

 ceased to flow. The former mode is less unsightly, and will 

 therefore be generally preferred, by the gardener ; but the 

 latter has been found more successful, in practice. It is of 

 consequence, however, to the full success of this system, that 

 the shoots should be broken, and not cut. If left to their 

 natural growth, or shortened by a sharp smooth cut with a 

 knife (instead of a fracture), they would produce, at their 

 extremities, only one single midsummer shoot, being a simple 

 prolongation of the w ood, formed in the spring : but when 

 the shoot is broken at the time, and in the manner above 

 described, it generally happens that, on the second flow of 

 sap in July, two or three, or more shoots (forming a kind of 

 stag's-horn) are pushed from the fractured part, instead of 

 one : and it is hardly necessary to add, that each of these, 

 according to its length, will produce several figs in the ensu- 

 ing spring (making the first crop of that fruit) all of them 

 capable of being ripened by our ordinary summer and au- 

 tumn heats. It will require attention, on the part of the 

 gardener, to break the shoots, each at its proper moment.f 

 If the fracture be made too soon, the spring sap, continuing 

 to flow, will form the rudiments of early second shoots, that 

 will put out figs before the winter, all of which will be infal- 

 libly cut off; if too late, the shoot itself will perish, from not 



* See Note F. -f. See Note G. 



