( 99 ) 
circumftance has not occurred. The fig-trees 
cultivated in our own country produce two 
crops; the firft upon moots of a year's 
growth, which appears in fpring, and arrives 
at maturity in the courfe of the fummer ; the 
laft crop does not put forth till autumn, and 
proceeds from the fhoots of the preceding 
fummer. This crop can never ripen in our 
climate, and is carefully pulled off by the 
gardeners. It would feem that the tree has 
not power to bring two crops to perfection, 
^even under the influence of more benignant 
ikies, as at Malta, as the fruit obtained by the 
procefs of caprification is fcanty and of bad 
quality. 
The neceffity of this operation has, how- 
ever, univerfally obtained belief in the eaft ; 
but, in this inquiring age, we cannot eafily 
affent to fafts to which we think both reafon 
and analogy oppofed. If a fig be cut open at 
the time when it gapes at the top, the florets 
may be feen arranged on the infide in a beau- 
tiful manner, and there may be found feveral 
of the ftamen-bearing kind in the ftate of 
difperfmg their duft. 
We are now arrived at the twenty-fourth 
or laft clafs of the Linnean fyftem, the clafs 
H % Crypto- 
