THE FIG, ITS NATURE AND CULTURE. 
and even then they should be removed before 
they grow too large. Suckers should be 
taken off with roots attached at the fall of the 
leaf, and be planted at once where they are 
to fruit, or in nursery-beds, to grow into 
strength. If they are wanted for training 
they should be cut down to three or four 
eyes; if for standards they must not lose their 
leaders. But perhaps the layering is the 
most ready means of propagating strong 
plants. The branches for this purpose should 
be not the most vigorous ; on the contrary, 
the short-jointed wood is the best. The 
branches have only to be pegged down two 
inches under the surface, and the end bent 
upwards rather suddenly, for the ""roots will 
protrude very rapidly from the joint where 
the bend is most sudden, and there is no 
occasion to cut a notch ; but if it be deter- 
mined to notch the place by way of directing 
where the root shall come, let the notch be 
just below a joint, but on the upper side of 
the branch. You will have to be careful 
that the joint be not broken off by the peg- 
ging down. If the operation be performed 
any time before the spring growth commences, 
the layer will be rooted enough to take off 
at the fall of the leaf, when it may be treated 
as suckers and seedlings are treated. Per- 
haps, however, the best plants are from cut- 
tings ; these should be taken from good 
short jointed bearing wood, that is, ripened 
wood of one season ; cuttings about a foot 
long, taken off at the heel, with a shield of 
the old wood at the base, may be put in 
pots, with the heel close to the drainage, and 
placed in slight bottom heat in early spring ; 
see that they are regularly watered, and have 
air as soon as they grow. The cuttings may 
be taken off in the autumn, and plunged 
into the ground up to their tops, but they 
must be covered with litter or they will lose 
their tops. They are none the worse for 
either cuttings or grafts for their separation 
from the tree, but if there be the convenience 
for giving bottom heat, they will grow early 
in the spring and make good progress before 
they need be planted out or placed in the 
open air. These plants may be kept in their 
pots till the autumn, when they must be 
planted out or repotted in larger pots to use 
for forcing or growing under glass. 
TRAINING AND PRUNING ON WALLS. 
The fig, like many other subjects for wall 
culture, will grow best when trained fan- 
fashion ; but the blunder which too many 
make in fan-training is neglecting to begin 
low enough, as if the fan were to be half 
open instead of quite open. The lowest 
limbs ought to be horizontal, and within four 
or six inches of the ground ; there is no 
difficulty in filling the walls upwards ; the 
branches immediately above the lower ones 
should be brought down to only a reason- 
able distance from the lowest, and all other 
branches be placed at regular distances, so 
that the wall, as far as the branches will 
reach, shall fairly cover it ; as newer shoots 
come upwards, let them also be brought to 
their proper distances, so that in time the 
wall will be fairly covered. The horizontal 
growth should be encouraged, and the tree 
will in a very few years cover ten or fif- 
teen feet on each side of the stem, and it is 
not desirable to encourage tall growth under 
any circumstances. The spring shoots will 
bear fruit in autumn if allowed to grow, but 
except where they are wanted to fill up the 
wall, and the ends of the branches extending 
sideways, all these spring shoots should be 
broken back to three orfour eyes — not broken 
off, but broken down. Midsummer shoots, 
as they are called, will come from the eyes 
below the break, and these shoots will bear 
the crop in the following spring. Of course 
the tree looks untidy while the ends of the 
branches are hanging about, but if they were 
cut off instead of bent down, they would 
bleed and weaken the branch ; in the autumn 
they are pulled or cut off, the shoots from the 
unbroken part being properly tacked to the 
wall. In the spring these shoots will bear 
the crop that will ripen. The new shoots of 
the spring will go on as before, and would, if 
not disturbed, bear a crop that could not 
ripen, but by breaking them again as soon as 
they have nearly done their growth, the mid- 
summer shoots come from the three or four 
eyes left undisturbed, and again produce the 
wood for the next year's spring crop. Many 
gardeners pull off a good deal of the foliage, 
that the sun may get at the fruit. This may 
be carried to an extreme very easily as in 
the vine ; but as every leaf a tree loses with- 
out the branch belonging to it, weakens it 
in some respects, the system is bad. Take 
care that the branches are not too close 
together ; and to prevent this, the precaution 
of lessening the number must be taken in 
the early growth of the spring, for just as the 
bud pushes off a branch not wanted, it should 
be rubbed off. You have therefore to con- 
sider, when the tree first pushes, first, that 
every spring shoot shortened back pro- 
duces three or four midsummer shoots to bear 
fruit the spring following, and therefore that 
you .ought not to allow one more spring 
shoot than is necessary to grow at all ; by rub- 
bing off the buds, all the vigour of the tree 
goes to the few you allow to grow, and the 
chances are that you will require no thinning 
of the foliage ; a leaf over a fruit is not too 
much shade, but if branches be allowed to- 
