FIG TREE. 
306 
both wild and domestic, that require a very singular 
mode of treatment to make them bring their fruit 
to perfection ; the assistance we here allude to is 
named caprification, and is a phsenomenon highly 
deserving our attention. 
The most satisfactory account of this curious 
operation is to be found in Tournefort s \ oyage to 
the Levant, which account has been strengthen- 
ed by the observations made at Malta, by M. 
Godeheu, on the same subject. We are informed 
by M. Tournefort that only two kinds of figs 
are cultivated in the Archipelago, the domestic 
and the wild ; from the former they gather that 
fruit which can only be brought to perfection by 
the assistance of the latter, or wild fig, which has 
been named caprificus , and in the country ornos. 
This tree bears successively, in the same year, three 
sorts of fruit, to which the natives of the Archipe- 
lago, have given different names. 
The first fruit, which they nzmefornitcs, are the 
autumnal figs ; they appear in August, and fall in 
September and October. The second figs, called 
cratilires , are the winter figs, and remain on the 
trees from September till May; then come the third 
kind, or spring figs, known in the country by the 
name of orni. 
None of these fruits ripen, but they have a sleek 
even skin, of a deep green colour, and contain in 
their dry and mealy inside several male and female 
flowers, placed upon distinct footstalks, the former 
above the latter. In the first figs, or fornites, are 
