On tlie Cultivation of the Fig. 387 
ground is six feet ten inches in circumference ; about a foot from the 
ground it divides into two leading branches, one of them at four feet 
from the ground, measures four feet, the other, three feet five inches in 
circumference. There are also two others, which liave been planted 
forty-five years, one of them is twenty-feet high and one hundred feet in 
circumference. Last year, i had a temporary frame erected over the 
last mentioned tree, and completely enclosed it with worsted netting, 
to keep the birds, wasps, and flies from the fruit : it had the desired 
effect, for no bird could get in, and very few wasps or flies found their 
way to the fruit. The fruit ripened excellently under the net. I am 
considerably under the number when I say a hundred dozen ripened 
on that one tree. The fruit of this tree is middling sized, of a greenish 
yellow colour, white within, very sweet and rich, and ripe from the begin- 
ning to the latter end of September ; it is called here "White Marseilles." 
Three of the other large trees are of the same sort ; the other one of the 
old trees is a large purple Fig, the skin is a dark purple, with a beautiful 
bloom, the grains are large, and the pulp sweet and high flavoured; it 
ripens in ordinary seasons about the middle of August — it ripened two 
crops last year. 
Pruning and Training. — Most gardeners (even Miller) observe 
that the Fig trees should never have much prunmg, or at least, that they 
should always be suffered to grow very rude from the wall to some 
distance. A pruned Fig tree never bears, is a common saying, nor, ac- 
cording to Wickham, can its truth be denied, when applied to the most 
common method of pruning these trees, /. c. by cutting away, or short- 
ening the last year's shoots, instead of cutting away old wood, and 
training those shoots to the wall in its place. Wickham, in the Horticul- 
tural Transactions, vol. 3, page 74, says, to procure abundance of mid- 
summer shoots, which ni this climate alone are to be depended upon, 
break off the spring siioots about the period that the flow of spring- 
sap abates, taking care to leave unbroken enough of each shoot to admit 
of its being nailed close to the wall at the next winter-prunino-, and to 
secure one, at the least, uninjured by the fracture. The shoots are to be 
broken, b:it not cut, (and the operation causes the protrusion of two or 
three midsummer shoots, by which the supply of bearing wood is greatly 
increased,) always preserving a quantity unbroken, to keep up a sup- 
ply of branches and wood. Keeping this object in view, he adds, the 
knife cannot be used too freely in cutting away the old wood. 
Knight, disapproves of the branches of the Fig being trained perpen- 
dicularly, as encouraging too much the prolongation of the shoots ; he 
approves of Wickham's mode in warm situations, but in high cold 
situations he radiates his branches from the top, and parts near it, of a 
single stem. The Rev. G. Swayne recommends rubbing off as thev can 
