an object to raise masses of tree-vegetation in widely treeless lands
of the warmer zones for shade and fruit. Hence the extensive plantations
of this tree made in formerly woodless parts of E gypt ; hence
the likelihood of choosing the Fig as one of the trees for extensive
planting through favorable portions of desert-waste, where moreover
the fruit could be dried with particular ease. Small cuttings
went quite well, chiefly by liorse-post, from Po rt Phillip to the
central Australian Mission-stations, a distance as far as from St.
Petersburg to the Black Sea, or from Bombay to Thibet, or from Cape!
town to Lake Ngami, or from San Francisco to the Upper Missouri.
Maintained its high reputation there as a drought-resisting tree
during the worst seasons, and grew best of all fruit-trees. Fiu-trees
can be grown even on sand-lands, a t least as observed o'u the
Australian south-coast. In Greece the average yield of figs per
acre is about 1,600 lbs. [Simmonds]. Caprification was also in this
work pronounced unnecessary or even objectionable on the strength
of researches by Professor Gasparrini and other former observers.
Nevertheless the intelligent cultivators in Anatolia, by whom the
Smyima-Figs, the best of all dried figs, are reared, adhere to the
caprifioation-process, used from time immemorial; moreover they
incur much trouble and even sometimes considerable expense for
carrying out this procedure, and they contend th a t without this
measure the quite unrivalled quality and extensive maturity of the '
crop cannot be attained. In California hitherto vain attempts have
been made to produce fruit there comparable to tlie Smyrua-Fig
even on seemingly fitting soil and iu proper climatic regions’.
Iherefore the staminate tree was recently introduced into th a t
country, and efforts are made to import also the so-called caprifica-
tion-fly (Blastophaga grossorum, formerly named Cynips psenes),
as no native insect there or elsewhere seems able to carry on the
remarkable symbiosis of th a t Hymenopter. Possibly a stimulating
influence is exercised on the development o f the whole compound
fig-frmt by this process of fecundation. I t might therefore be
desirable to^ institute renewed experiments, unbiased by either
earliest traditions or recent discardings, to clearly recognise in the
light of progressive science the advantages and disadvantages of
the ancient custom of aided pollination also in these colonies, and
thereby to complete our insight for raising also here the almost
unique Smyrna-figs for exsiccation. Sending of special emissaries
to study this question Tocally in the Levant, would lead to the
speediest and safest results. Two main-varieties may be distin-
guished : th a t which produces two crops a year, and th a t which
yields but one. The former includes the Gray or Purple Fig, which
IS the best, the White Fig and the Golden Fig, the latter being the
finest in appearance, but not in quality. The main-variety, which
bears only one crop a year, supplies the greatest quantity of figs
for drying, among which the White Marseillaise and Bellonne
Bourdissotte blanche, Coldi, Signora Blancha et Nero, D’Or dé
Laura, are considered the best. What in California proved the
best variety, as well for drying as for fresh consumption, is called
there the IVhite Adriatic, bu t also known as tbe Strawberry-Fig.
Dr. Gustav Eisen gives 360 vernacular names of the Ficus Carica.
The Barnisote and the Aubique produce delicious large fruits, but
they must be dried with fire-heat, and are usually consumed fresh.
As regards English literature, sub-varieties are enumerated and their
peculiarities recorded in Eees’ Cyclopedia by Sir James Smith in
1810, iu Dr. Hogg’s successive editions of his Fruit-Manual and in
several other works. The small brown Malta kind is left to dry on
the tree. Noire aud Preeose del Spagne are among the earliest kinds.
The ordinary drying is effected in the sun. Ripens occasionally still
its fruits in the lowlands of Scotland, where wall-shelter exists
[Loudon]. Import during 1886 into Britain, 114,253 cwt., valued
£211,276. For remarks on this and other points, concerning the
Fig, the valuable tra c t published by the Rev. Dr. Bleasdale should
be consulted. The first crop of figs grows on wood of the preceding
y e a r; the la st crop however on wood of the current year. Varieties of
particular excellence are known from Genoa, Savoy, Malaga, Andalusia.
F o r some further information, see among other publications
also that of the Hon. the Commissioner of Agriculture, Washington,
1878. Seeds of carefully dried Smyrna figs are fit to germinate
[Macmahon]. Dr. Eisen has published an excellent essay on Fig-
culture in California. Figs can also be subjected to fermentation
and distillation for alcohol. The black fungaceous deterioration in
dried figs of commerce is usually caused by Sterigmatocystis ficuum.
F icus oolumnaris, Moore and Mueller.
Tbe Banyan-tree of Lord Howe’s Island, therefore extra-tropical.
One of the most magnificent productions in the whole empire of
plants. Mr. Fitzgerald, a visitor to the island, remarks th a t the
pendulous aerial roots, when they touch the ground, gradually swell
into columns of the same dimensions as the older ones, which have
already become converted into stems, so that it is not evident which
was the parent trunk ; there may be a hundred stems to the tree,
on which the huge dome of dark evergreen foliage rests ; but these
stems are all alike, and thus it is impossible to say, whence the
tree comes or whither it goes. The aerial roots are rather rapidly
formed, but the wood never attains the thickness of P. macrophylla,
which produces only a single trunk. He saw one individual tree
covering two acres. The allied F . rubiginosa of continental East-
Australia has great buttresses, but only now and then a pendulous
root, approaching in similarity the stems of Ficus columuaris. The
Lord Howe’s Island Fig-tree is more like F. macrophylla than F.
rubiginosa, but F . columnaris is more rufous in foliage than either.
In humid, warm, sheltered tracts this grand vegetable living structure
may be raised as an enormous bower for shade aud for scenic
ornament. The nature of the sap, whether available for caoutchouc
or other industrial material, requires yet to be tested. A substance
almost identical with gutta-percha, but not like india-rubber, has