366 Account of a Method of Forcing Figs, $>c. 



and three feet and a half deep, is formed on the floor of a 

 glass fruiting house, in the front part, and the whole length 

 of the house ; the pots are placed on the top of this bed 

 in a row at such distances that the branches of the trees 

 shall not interfere with each other. The house is seventy 

 feet long, and eight feet wide, with fire flues in the back wall, 

 on which Grapes are grown. The Fig trees occupy the 

 front ; a week or ten days after they are put into the house, 

 the fires are lighted, and the temperature from fire heat is 

 kept from 65° to 70° degrees of Fahrenheit. When the heat 

 of the bed has moderated, that is, in about six weeks from 

 the commencement, the pots are sunk into it up to their 

 rims. The roots of the trees soon after this shoot through 

 the holes in the bottom of the pots into the bed, which thus 

 supplies great nourishment to the plants, and materially con- 

 tributes to the advance of the fruit. The wood of the trees 

 is frequently lightly syringed with water, until it begins to 

 burst into leaf and to shew fruit ; when the leaves are ex- 

 panded, water is plentifully supplied, both to the pots and 

 on the leaves. The fruit begins to ripen early in April, and 

 a succession from the different kinds used, and by means of 

 the second crop, is kept up in the same house until October. 

 As the branches grow they are tied to stakes to prevent 

 their intermixing with each other, and to keep them in their 

 places, so as to derive the greatest advantage from the light 

 and air. The sorts of Figs which are thus cultivated at 

 Harewood, are the Genoa, the large Brown Ischia, the small 

 Black Ischia, the Green Ischia, the Murry and the Black 

 Genoa. The trees are of different ages, from three to twenty 

 years. 



