On the Management of the Fig Tree, #c. 429 



detail more particularly ; it is to rub or break off with the 

 finger and thumb, all the Figs which are produced after 

 midsummer, on the same year's shoots, not one of which 

 will ever ripen in this country without the aid of artificial 

 heat. It is important that this business be performed without 

 delay. As soon as these small Figs can be discovered by 

 the naked eye, they must be displaced ; not only to prevent 

 them from exhausting the vigour and natural powers of 

 the tree by their further growth, but more especially to 

 give it sufficient time to exert those powers, in the sea- 

 sonable preparation of new embryo Figs, for the following 

 year, in the room of those immature fruit, of which it has 

 thus been deprived. If this operation be performed in due 

 time, it will not fail to prepare on one, and often on both, 

 sides of almost every Fig so displaced, such embryos. For 

 this purpose the trees should be examined once a week, at 

 least, from the beginning of August, at which time the Figs 

 of this second crop usually begin to shew themselves, and 

 this examination must be repeated as long as any of these 

 make their appearance. 



Most gardeners, indeed, except those who are very negli- 

 gent, rid their trees of this sterilizing incumbrance at one 

 time or other ; but then they do not think of doing it (nor 

 are they directed to do it in any gardening book that I have 

 seen), till the leaves drop in the latter end of October, or 

 beginning of November, by which time these blood-suckers 

 will have done all the mischief in their power. 



Mr. James Smith, in his communication to the Cale- 

 donian Horticultural Society,* on the cultivation of Figs in 



* See Memoirs of the Caledonian Horticultural Society, vol. ii. page 69. 



