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XLIX. Upon the Cultivation of the Fig Tree. In a Letter to the 

 Secretary. By Sir C. M. L. Monck, Bart. F. II. S. 



Read February 5, 1833. 



Dear Sir, 



II aving formerly made a communication to the Society on the 

 cultivation of fig trees, I believe I am now able to contribute some 

 further information. 



A few years ago a Fig-house was built here ; the back and end 

 walls were of stone : the front of sashes from an old mansion, at that 

 time taken down : these were set upright, and at four feet distance 

 from the wall ; the space between was covered at the top by a 

 sloping roof of glazed lights. The border between the upright 

 sashes and back wall was made three feet deep of good soil, and the 

 fig-trees grew in it luxuriantly ; but the fruit was scantily pro- 

 duced, and never ripened freely. It appeared to me, that, for want 

 of command of artificial heat in the wall, the temperature could not 

 be raised so high, or maintained so well, as is necessary to bring 

 forward the summer crop of figs in right season, before the sun is 

 too far declined. I therefore, last autumn, took down the back wall, 

 and rebuilt it with a flue of three ranges in a wall often feet high, 

 and to ensure to my gardener the most perfect command of tempera- 

 ture, I caused the facing bricks to be set on edge, so that the wall, 

 between the smoke of the fire and the inside of the house, was only 

 two and a half inches thick. To obviate the weakness of such a 

 wall, I caused the ranges of flue to be covered with a two and 

 half inch thick cover of fire-stone, and upon that again another such 

 plate of fire-stone, to serve for sole to the range of flue above ; so, 

 the two courses of soles and covers do duty for two courses of brick. 



