F I 
weather is favourable, a good (hare of free air fttould be 
admitted ; and if the trees are young, that their roots 
are iv>t extended beyond the reach of the covering, they 
mud be frequently watered when they begin to (hew 
fruit, otherwife it will drop off; but old trees, whofe 
roots are extended to a great diftance, will only require 
to have their branches nowand then fprinkled over with 
water. If thefe trees are properly managed, the firft 
crop of fruit will be greater than upon thofe which are 
expofed to the open air, and will ripen fix weeks or two 
months earlier, and a plentiful fecond crop may alfo be 
obtained, which will ripen early in September, and fome- 
times in Augttft, which is about the feafon of their ripen¬ 
ing in the warmer parts of Europe; but the fires fliould 
not be ufed to thefe trees till the beginning of February; 
becaufe when they are forced too early, the weather is 
frequently too cold to admit a fufficient quantity of frefti 
air to fet the fruit; but the covers fhould be put over 
the trees a-month before, to prevent the (hoots from be¬ 
ing injured by the froft. 
It may not be improper in this place to mention the 
great pains which the inhabitants of the Levant are at in 
the culture of their figs ; and without which (it is gene¬ 
rally laid by all travellers who have written on this fub- 
jebf, as alfo by Pliny, and other old naturalifts,) their 
fruit will fall off, and be good for nothing. This is called 
Caprification.. The mod ample and fatisfablory ac¬ 
counts of this curious operation are thofe of Tournefort 
and Pontedera: the former, in his Voyage to the Levant, 
and in a Memoir delivered to the Academy of Sciences at 
Paris in 1705; the latter, in his Anthologia. The fub- 
ftance of Tournefort’s account follows. 
“ Of the thirty fpecies or varieties of the domedic fig- 
tree which are cultivated in France, Spain, and Italy, 
there are but two cultivated in the Archipelago. The 
fird fpecies is called orvos , from the old Greek critics , 
which anfwers to caprificus in Latin, and fignifies a wild 
fig-tree. The fecond is the domeftic or garden fig-tree. 
The former bears fucceffively, in the fame year, three 
forts of fruit, called fornites , cratitires , and orni ; which, 
though not good to eat, are found abfolutely neceflary 
towards ripening thofe of the garden fig. Thefe fruits 
have a fieek even lkin ; are of a deep green colour; and 
contain in their dry and mealy infide feveral male and fe¬ 
male flowers placed upon diliindt foot-dalks, the former 
above the latter. The fornites appear in Augud, and con¬ 
tinue to November without ripening : in thefe are bred 
fmull worms, which turn to a fort of gnats no where to 
he feen but about thefe trees. In October and Novem¬ 
ber, thefe gnats of themfelves make a punbture into the 
fecond fruit, which is called cratitires. Thefe do not 
fliow themfelves till towards the end of September. The 
fornites gradually fall away after the gnats are gone ; the 
cratitires, on the contrary, remain on the tree till May, 
and inclofe the eggs depofited by the gnats when they 
pricked them. In May, the third fort of fruit, called 
orni, begins to be produced by the wild fig-trees. This 
is much bigger than the other two ; and when it grows to 
a certain fize, and its bud begins to open, it is pricked in 
that part by the gnats of the cratitires, which are ftrong 
enough to go from one fruit to another to depofit their 
eggs. It fometimes happens that the gnats of the cra¬ 
titires are (low to come forth in certain parts, while the 
orni in thofe very parts are difpofed to receive them. In 
this cafe, the hufbandman is obliged to look for the cra¬ 
titires in another part, and fix them at the ends of the 
branches of thofe fig-trees whofe orni are in a fit difpofi- 
tion to be pricked by the gnats. If they niifs the oppor¬ 
tunity, the orni fall, and the gnats of the cratitires fly 
away. None but thofe that were well acquainted with 
the culture, know the critical moment of doing this; and 
in order to know it, their eye is perpetually fixed on the 
bud of the fig; for that part not only indicates the time 
that the prickers are to ifliie forth, but alfo when the fig 
is to be fuccefsfully pricked ; if the bud is too hard and 
c U S. 555 
compaft, the gnat cannot lay its eggs; and the fig drops 
when the bud is too open. 
“ The ufe of all thefe three forts of fruit is to ripen 
the fruit of the garden fig-tree, in the following manner. 
During the months of June and July, the peafants take 
the orni, at the time their gnats are ready to bteak out, 
and carry them to the garden fig-trees : if they do not 
nick the moment, the orni fall ; and the fruit of the do¬ 
meftic fig-tree, not ripening, will in a very little time fall 
in like manner. The peafants are fo w'ell acquainted wdth 
thefe precious moments, that, every morning in making 
their infpebtion, they only transfer to their garden fig- 
trees fuch orni as are well conditioned, otherwife they 
lofe their crop. In this cafe, however, they have one 
remedy, though an indifferent one ; which is to drew 
over the garden fig-trees the afeolimbros , a very common 
plant there, and in whofe fruit there is a fort of gnats 
proper for piercing; perhaps they are the gnats of the 
orni, which are ufed to hover about and plunder the 
flowers of this plant. 
“ In Ihort, the peafants fo well order the orni, that 
their gnats caufe the fruit of the garden fig-tree to ripen 
in the compafs of forty days. Thefe figs are very good 
frefti ; when they would dry them, they lay them in the 
fun for fotne time, then put them in an oven to keep them 
the reft of the year. Barley-bread, and dried figs, are the 
principal fubfiftence of the peafants and monks of the 
Archipelago: but thefe figs are very far from being fo 
good as thofe dried in Provence, Italy, and Spain; the 
heat of the oven deftroys all their delicacy and good 
tafte; but then, on the other hand, this heat kills the 
eggs which the flies of the orni difeharged therein, which 
eggs would infallibly produce fmall worms that would 
prejudice thefe fruits. 
“ What an expence of time and pains is here for a fig, 
and that but an indifferent one at laft ! I could not fuffi- 
ciently admire the patience of the Greeks, bnfied above 
two months in carrying thefe flies from one tree to ano¬ 
ther. I was foon told the reafon ; one of their fig-trees 
ufually produces between two and three hundred pounds 
of figs, and ours in Provence feldom above twenty-five. 
The flies contribute, perhaps, to the maturity of the fruit 
of the garden fig-tree, by tearing the veflels in depofiting, 
their eggs; and thus caufing the nutritious juice to ex- 
travafate; perhaps too, befide their eggs, they leave be¬ 
hind them fome fort of liquor proper to ferment gently 
with the milk of the fig, and to make their fled) tender.” 
Juffieu doubts whether the fucculency and turgefcence 
of the efculent fig be owing to the defluxion of the nu¬ 
tritious juice, occafioned by the punbtures of the infeifts, 
or to the impregnation of the feeds from the farina con¬ 
veyed by them. The fexual botanifts have adopted the 
latter caufe, and regard it as one main prop of their fyf- 
tem. Here, as in fimilar cafes, two purpofes are anfwered 
at once, the impregnation of the feed, and the ripening of 
the pulp. The figs in Provence, and even at Paris, ripen 
much fooner for having their eyes pricked with a (traw r 
dipped in olive oil. Plums and pears, pricked by fome 
infebfs, likewife ripen much the fafter for it; and the 
fle(h round fuch punbture is better tailed than the reft. 
It is not to be difputed but that confiderable change hap¬ 
pens to the contexture of fruits fo pricked, juft the fame 
as to parts of animals pierced with any (harp inftrument. 
Others have fuppofed that thefe infebts penetrated the 
fruit of the tree to which they were brought, and gave 
a more free admiffion to the air and to the fun. Linnaeus 
explained the operation by fuppofing that the infebts 
brought the farina from the w ild fig, which contained 
male flowers only, to the domeftic fig, which contained 
the female ones. Haffelquift, from what he faw in Pa- 
leftine, feemed to doubt of this mode of frudtification. 
M. Bernard, in the Memoirs of the Society of Agricul¬ 
ture, oppofes it more decidedly. He could never find the 
infedt in the cultivated fig; and, in reality, it appeared 
to leave the wild fig, after the ftamina were mature, 
and 
