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ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM.

PART III.

and produce abundant crops; though the fruit is inferior in flavour to thatripened against walls, except in very fine seasons.

Properties and Uses. The fig is cultivated almost entirely for its fruit.Its wood, which is extremely light and tender, is used, in France , for makingwhetstones, from its facility in receiving and retaining the emery and theoil that are employed to sharpen smiths’ tools. The soft wood is white, andthe heart-wood yellow. It loses a great deal in weight by drying; but itacquires by that process so much strength and elasticity, that the screws ofwine-presses are made of it. AVhen used as fuel, it does not give a veryintense heat; but its charcoal has the valuable property of consuming veryslowly. The fruit is esteemed demulcent and laxative; and it has been longused in domestic medicine as a poultice. King Hezekiah ’s boil was cured bya lump or poultice of figs, applied according to the directions of Isaiah , andwhich, Professor Burnet observes, is the first poultice that we read of in history.In the Canaries, in Portugal , and in the Greek Archipelago, a kind of brandyis distilled from fermented figs. The leaves and bark of the fig tree abound ina milky acrid juice, which may be used as rennet, for raising blisters, and fordestroying warts. This milky juice containing caoutchouc, Indian rubber mightconsequently be made from the common fig tree in England, if it were thoughtdesirable; and, on account of the same property, the very tenderest of theyoung leaves might be given to the larva of the silkmoth. All the speciesof the genus Ficus , and also of the allied genus Carica, are said to have thesingular property of rendering raw meat tender when hung beneath their shade.On what chemical principle this is to be accounted for, we are ignorant,but the fact seems undoubted. As a fruit tree, the fig is valuable for thrivingand ripening fruit in situations not favourable in regard to light, air, or soil;such as against walls in court-yards, against the walls of houses in crowdedcities, on the back-walls of green-houses and forcing-houses, comparatively inthe shade, &c. It also bears better than any other fruit tree whatever, inpots; and, with abundance of liquid manure and heat, will produce, in a stove,three, and sometimes even four, crops in the course of a year.

Culture and Management of the Fig in Countries where it is grown as an Articleof Commerce. In France, more particularly about Marseilles , when a figplantation is to be formed, an open situation is made choice of near the sea,andexposed' to the south and the east. The ground is trenched 2 ft. or 3 ft. deep,and richly manured; and the trees are planted in squares, or in quincunx,atfrom 12 ft. to 15 ft. distance from each other. The plants are watered fre-quently during the first summer, and left without any pruning whatever; butin the winter of the second year they are cut down to the ground. The thirdyear, they throw up vigorous shoots, five or six of which are retained to for®a bush ; and in the following, or fourth, year the tree is suffered to ripen fruit.In some cases, the trees are trained to single stems ; and this is generally thecase in Italy and Greece , where the climate is milder, and the tree attains alarger size than in France . In the future management of the trees, theyrequire very little pruning, except when they get too much crowded withbranches. They seldom suffer from insects ; but always more or less, duringvery hot summers, from the want of water, which they require in abundance,on account of the excessive transpiration which takes place from their largeleaves and very porous bark, which has but a very slight epidermis. Hence,®seasons of very great drought, the branches are sometimes completely burntup. Severe frost has the same effect on the branches in winter, even at Mar-seilles, as extreme drought has in summer. In the south of France , and in allcountries which may properly be called fig climates, two crops are producedin a year: the first is from the old wood, and corresponds with our crops ®England; and the second from the wood of the current year, the figs pro -duced by which, in this country, are never ripened except in hot-houses. WGreece and Egypt a third crop is sometimes produced. The first crop ]Sripened, in the south of France and in Italy , in May; and the second crop ®September. Those which are to be dried are left on the tree till theyai®