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of the best quality not to have lasted wine at forty years 
old.” Figs were amongst the articles of food allowed at 
the common tables established by Lycurgus; and by the 
Athenians they were deemed of so much importance, in 
this point of view, that their exportation was strictly 
prohibited. A failure in the crop of figs was considered 
by the Jews a national calamity; and when judgment 
was denounced against their land, this was always part 
of the curse, " There shall be no grapes on die vines, nor 
figs on the fig-tree.” 
The fig sometimes bears a triple crop, thus supplying 
the inhabitants of the countries where it grows with fruit 
a great part of the year. The first ripe figs, according 
to Dr. Shaw, “ are called boccore, and come to maturity 
about the latter end of June, though, like other fruit, 
they yield a few ripe before the full season.” These are 
probably of inferior value*; for the prophet Hosea says, 
“ I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw 
your fathers as the first ripe in the fig-tree at her first 
time.” When the boccore draws near perfection, 
the karmouse, or summer fig, begins to be formed. 
This is the crop which is dried. When the karmouse 
• This seems a little at variance with a passage in Jeremiah, xxiv. 2., 
“ One basket had very good figs, even like the fig* that arc first ripe." 
