12 



ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



in every other part of the fruit. And since such substances arc 

 changed more or less easily by the contact of air, as has been 

 already noticed, and thus become acid, we may at any rate assume, 

 at least in general terms, that a certain number of acids, if not all, 

 and those fatty matters which can become acid, promote in the fig 

 an anticipation of maturity. 



But how does this act commence ? "With the increase of the 

 fruit. This increase indicates an excitement in all the organs, 

 communicated by the scales impressed with the potential agent. 

 The most apparent specialities which accompany it are the form, 

 the volume, the colour, the weight which the fruit acquires in 

 the course of ten days. We have said enough, in the memoir 

 published two years since, of the change of colour and the most 

 palpable changes in the elementary organs ; and on some speciali- 

 ties we have hinted not long since that we have nothing to bring 

 forward, — the form, for example, in which there is little difference 

 between the anointed fruit when it is unripe and when it is mature. 

 We have not, however, asserted that, under uniform conditions of 

 soil, exposure, age, and the vegetative state of the tree, one va- 

 riety of Fig is more or less inclined to experience an unnatural 

 promotion of maturity than another. 



Heat, light, the nature of the soil, moisture, and the agitation 

 of the air influence the time which the anointed fruit takes to in- 

 crease and become ripe ; but, on an average, maturation occurs in 

 ten days during August and part of September. The early 

 figs also (fioroni) at the end of June, anointed with oil at the 

 mouth, ripen prematurely in the same space of time. With 

 respect to volume, it being premised that the fruit increases to 

 double the size, either a little more or less, the ordinary increase 

 begins to appear on the fourth day, and on the tenth frequently 

 exceeds what has been mentioned. I have but one observation 

 respecting the greater weight which attends the increase of 

 volume. In the Brogiotto Pig, on the eighth of August, some 

 fruits of this year's wood, green and unripe, as far as possible 

 equal in . size and like each other, in the form of a top, were 4 

 centimetres (1*57 inch) high, and three (1*2 inch) in the larger 

 diameter. One of them weighed 15*542 grammes (240 Troy 

 grains). Several were then anointed, and were perfectly ripe at 

 the end of twelve days, with little difference of size : the larger, 

 which had become almost round, measuring in length and breadth 

 6 centimetres (2'4 inches), weighed 71*75 grammes (1107 grains) — 



