14 



ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



experiment), and, "by penetrating into the subjacent tissue, inducing 

 an alteration in the contents of the cellules and milk-vessels, as 

 is supposed ; for the iiieflicacy of the same oil on the whole body of 

 the fruit, where the alleged functions principally take place, con- 

 tradicts irrefragably this notion. And since the effect is obtained 

 by anointing with oil the mouth of the fig alone, and this liquid 

 spreads around for a short distance only, we must naturally re- 

 cognize in the assemblage of the little scales with which this part 

 is furnished, a special organ capable by itself of feeling the ac- 

 tion, the first effect of which, as> we have said above, is the in- 

 crease of the entire receptacle. Not being able to attribute this 

 to any material nutrition which the oil can induce, we must agree 

 that it excites the vegetation of the nnripe fruit, always then sta- 

 tionary, by making the lymph flow to it. 



The other important fact consists in the faculty of some acids 

 (not to say all), some fatty matters, and certain liquid or semiliquid 

 resinous substances, as mineral tar and petroleum, to produce 

 the same effect as the oil in similar conditions, when they come in 

 contact with the scales which surround the mouth of the fig. 

 Such agents as these and others are quite inefficacious on any 

 other part, in consequence of the local alteration of the subjacent 

 tissues which any of them (as, for example, sulphuric, azotic, and 

 hydrochloric acid) may effect, in which case, instead of increase 

 and premature ripening, the fall of the fruit in an unripe state 

 easily ensues. 



No one certainly will maintain that this substance brings, by 

 means of the scales, a nutritive moisture to the quite unripe 

 fruit : on the contrary, the increase may rather appear a natural 

 consequence of the drying up of the scales, by means of which 

 the moisture which arrives continually from the branch, stagnates 

 in the body of the organ. This opinion cannot, I think, be ac- 

 cepted, as it does not correspond with the very small quantity of 

 moisture which would have passed to the scales without any 

 agent, and the great quantity which enters in a few days in con- 

 sequence of its action. The following considerations may be 

 adduced in confirmation of my views. The scales in question 

 vary more or less in number in the fruit of the same tree ; in the 

 Tintore there are not less than a hundred in a fruit of the mean mag- 

 nitude. Their surface on an average measuring two square milli- 

 metres, they have together a surface of 200 square millimetres, 

 equal to f of a square inch ; and there being two faces to each 



