ON FIGS AND THEIR CULTURE AT CHISWICK. 



125 



first season the plant may be allowed to grow with a clear stem 

 to the required height, when it should have the point pinched 

 out — an operation, if the season is not too far gone, which will 

 have the effect of causing three or more of the top buds to break, 

 and when these have grown three or four inches they should be 

 again stopped in the same manner, and in the second and follow- 

 ing years (if they have grown sufficiently) the same process of 

 pinching out the points of the young shoots when three or four 

 inches long should be pursued. The plant thus formed should 

 at the end of the third year have all the shoots pruned back to 

 about half their length, and ought the following season to become 

 a fruiting plant. A great deal, of course, depends upon the culti- 

 vation and condition of the plants, &c. General principles only 

 can be stated. 



Pinching the Shoots. — Plants which have attained a suffi- 

 ciently large size should have their shoots regularly pinched when 

 about three or four inches long, which will induce the production 

 of fruit in abundance at the axils of the leaves. Shoots not so 

 pinched, but allowed to ramble, do not fruit so freely, the inces- 

 sant pinching to which they are subjected seeming to encourage 

 the production of fruit. 



Pruning. — Of pruning little is required with plants grown in 

 pots and well pinched. There is an old saying that " a pruned 

 Fig-tree never bears," which is scarcely true, as the Fig will 

 bear any amount of pruning. It is true that if we cut off all the 

 shoots in winter we can expect none of the "first crop " fruit, but 

 hope for the " second." In pruning the Fig it is well to 

 bear this in mind. Young plants, as already stated, require to 

 be pruned or cut back to bring them into form, and with fruiting 

 plants it is only necessary to prune back the straggling shoots, 

 so as to bring the plants back into form again. In some cases it 

 may be desirable to cut the plant quite hard back and commence 

 to form a new head entirely. 



Pot Culture. — The Fig is exceedingly well adapted to pot- 

 culture— no plant more so perhaps — and it can be cultivated to 

 more advantage in pots than in any other way. One recom- 

 mendation of this method is the great variety of sorts that may 

 be grown in a given space. By a proper selection of varie- 

 ties — early, mid-season, and late— a continual supply for several 

 months may be maintained. At Chiswick the crop begins 



