appears a spot before the fruit is ripe; the fruit in this place is affected with a gangreen, which extends on every side, and frequently occupies a finger's breadth. It withers: the place affected becomes black; the fleshy substance in the middle of the calyx, for the breadth of a quill, is corroded; and the male blossoms, which are nearest to the bare side, appear naked, opening a way for the insect, which makes several furrows in the inside of the fruit, but never touches the stigmata, though it frequently eats the germen. The wounded or gangrenous part is first covered or shut up by the blossoms; but the whole is, by degrees, opened and enlarged of various sizes in the different fruits; the margin and sides being all gangrenous, black, hard, and turned inwardly. The same gangrenous appearance is also found near the squamæ, after the insect has made a hole in that place. The tree is very common in the plains and fields of Lower Egypt. It buds in the end of March, and the fruit ripens in the beginning of June. It is wounded or cut by the inhabitants at the time it buds; for without this precaution they say it would not bear fruit.

3. Common Fig-Tree.

Ficus Carica.

This rises with a long stem branching 15 or 20 feet high, with large palmated or hand-shaped leaves. Of this there is a number of varieties; as the common fig, a large oblong, dark purplishblue fruit, which ripens in August either on standards or walls, and the trees carries a great quantity of fruit. The brown or chesnut fig; a large globular, chesnut-coloured fruit, having a purplish delicious pulp, ripening in July and August. The black Ischia fig; a middle-sized, shortish, flat-crowned, blackish fruit, having a bright pulp, ripening in the middle of August. The green Ischia fig; a large, oblong, globular-headed, greenish fruit, slightly stained by the pulp to a reddish brown colour, ripens in the end of August. The brown Ischia fig; a small, pyramidal, brownish yellow fruit, having a purplish very rich pulp, ripening in August and September. The Malta fig; a small flat-topped brown fruit, ripening in the middle of August or beginning of September. The round brown Naples fig; a globular, middle-sized, light-brown

fruit, and brownish pulp, ripe by the end of August. The long brown Naples fig; a long dark-brown fruit, having a reddish pulp, ripe in September. The great blue fig; a large blue fruit, having a fine red pulp. The black Genoa fig: a large-pear-shaped, blackcoloured fruit, with a bright red pulp, ripe in August.

The last species is that most frequently cultivated in this country, and the only one which does not require to be kept in a stove. It may be propagated either by suckers arising from the roots, by layers, or by cuttings. The suckers are to be taken off as low down as possible; trim off any ragged part at bottom, leaving the tops entire, especially if for standards, and plant them in nursery lines, at two or three feet distance from each other, or they may at once be planted where they are to remain, observing, that if they are designed for walls or espaliers, they may be headed to six or eight inches in March, the more effectually to force out lateral shoots near the bottom: but if intended for standards, they must not be topped, but trained with a stem, not less than 15 or 18 inches for dwarf standards, a yard for half standards, and four, five, or six feet, for full standards. They must then be suffered to branch out to form a head; observing, that whether against walls, espaliers, or standards, the branches or shoots must never be shortened, unless to procure a necessary supply of wood: for the fruit is always produced on the upper parts of the young shoots; and if these are cut off, no fruit can be expected. The best season for propagating these trees by layers is in autumn; but it may be also done any time from October to March, or April. Choose the young pliable lower shoots from the fruitful branches; lay them in the usual way, covering the bodies of the layers three or four inches deep in the ground, keeping the top entire, and as upright as possible, and they will be rooted, and fit to separate from the parent in autumn; when they may be planted either in the nursery, or where they are to remain, managing them as above-directed. The time for propagating by cuttings is either in autumn, at the fall of the leaf, or any time in March. Choose well-ripened shoots of the preceding summer, short, and of robust growth, from about 12 to 15 inches long, having an inch or two of the two-years' wood at their base, the tops left entire, and plant them six or eight inches deep, in a bed or border of good earth, in rows two feet asunder: and when planted in

autumn, it will be eligible to protect their tops in time of hard frost, the first winter, with any kind of small loose litter.

That part of the history of the fig-tree, which for many ages was so enigmatical, namely, the caprification, as it is called, is particularly worthy of attention, not only as a singular phenomenon in itself, but as it has furnished one of the most convincing proofs of the reality of the sexes in plants. In brief it is this: the flowers of the fig-tree are situated within a pulpy receptacle, which we call the fig or fruit; of these receptacles, in the wild fig-tree, some have male flowers only, and others have male and female, both distinct, though placed in the same receptacle. In the cultivated fig, these are found to contain only female flowers, which are fecundated by means of a kind of gnat bred in the fruit of the wild fig-trees, which pierces that of the cultivated, in order to deposit its eggs within; at the same time diffusing within the receptacle the farina of the male flowers. Without this operation the fruit may ripen, but no effective seeds are produced. Hence the garden fig can only be propagated by layers and cuttings in those countries where the wild fig is not known. The process of thus ripening the fruit, in the Oriental countries, is not left to nature, but is managed with great art, and different degrees of dexterity, so as to reward the skilful husbandman with a much larger increase of fruit than would otherwise be produced. A tree of the same size which in Provence, where caprification is not practised, may produce about 25 pounds of fruit, will by that art, in the Grecian islands, bring ten times that quantity.

Hence these salts; and for

Figs are a considerable article in the materia medica, chiefly employed in emollient cataplasms and pectoral decoctions. The best are those which come from Turkey. Many are also brought from the south of France, where they prepare them in the following manner. The fruit is first dipped in scalding-hot ley made of the ashes of the fig-tree, and then dried in the sun. figs stick to the hands, and scour them like lixivial the same reason they purge gently, without griping. derately nutrimental, grateful to the stomach, and easier to digest than any other of the sweet fruits. They have been said to produce lice when eaten as a common food; but this seems to be entirely without foundation. The reason of this supposition seems

They are mo

to be, that in the countries where they grow naturally, they make the principal food of the poor people, who are generally troubled with these vermin. The wood of the sycamore is not subject to rot, and has therefore been used for making coffins in which embalmed bodies are put. Mr. Hasselquist affirms, that he saw in Egypt coffins made of this kind of wood, which had been preserved sound for 2000 years.

[Hasselquist. Gregory. Editor.

SECTION IV.

Baobab, or Calabash.

Adansonia.-LINN.

THIS is found chiefly on the banks of the Senegal, and has so near a resemblance in its enormous extent and valuable properties to the Banian, that we shall only glance at a few of its peculiar properties. It has a trunk of a prodigious size, spreads its branches wide enough to afford protection to a whole village of inhabitants, and is supposed to possess a greater longevity than any other tree whatever, being calculated to require not less than a thousand years before it attains maturity.

We know of but one species, though Isert tells us there are many, the Adansonia digitata, so called from the finger-like divisions of its leaves. It bears a gourd, containing a very pleasant sub-acid fruit, which forms a considerable part of the food of the negro-tribes: who like the Indians, with respect to the Banian, observe it with a kind of religious veneration; and watch devotionally for the opening of its flowers at sun-rise. It adorns, with its verdant and compressed vaults and arches, the top of Cape Verd, which is hence said to take its name; and its hollow trunk sometimes serves for a temple or hall to a numerous assembly of natives. It is not however lofty. The one observed by Golberry was not more than twenty-four feet in height, though thirty-four in diameter, or a hundred and four in circumference. Darwin asserts that it sometimes rises to seventy feet in height, but we know of no instance of such a growth.

[ISERT, Reise nach Guinea.-Editor.

SECTION V.

Banana-tree.-Plantain-tree.

Musa.-LINN.

THE genus Musa includes three known species, M. Paradisiaca, or Plantain-tree; M. Sapientum, or Banana; and M. Troglytarum. The two former bear an excellent food, and are in many other respects peculiarly worthy of attention. The last has a scarlet berry, but not eatable.

1. Plantain-tree.

Musa Paradisiaca.-LINN.

This is cultivated in all the islands of the West Indies, where the fruit serves the Indians for bread; and some of the white people also prefer it to most other things, especially to the yams and cassada bread. The plant rises with a soft stalk 15 or 20 feet high; the lower part of the stalk is often as large as a man's thigh, diminishing gradually to the top, where the leaves come out on every side these are often eight feet long, and from two to three broad, with a strong fleshy mid-rib, and a great number of transverse veins running from the mid-rib to the borders. The leaves are thin and tender, so that where they are exposed to the open air, they are generally torn by the wind; for as they are large, the wind has great power against them: these leaves come out from the centre of the stalk, and are rolled up at their first appearance; but when they are advanced above the stalk, they expand and turn backward. As these leaves come up rolled in this manner, their advance upwards is so quick, that their growth may almost be discovered by the naked eye: and if a fine line is drawn across level with the top of the leaf, in an hour the leaf will be near an inch above it. When the plant is grown to its full height, the spikes of flowers appear in the centre, which is often near four feet long. The flowers come out in bunches, those in the lower part of the spike being the largest; the others diminish in their size upward. Each of these bunches is covered with a sheath of a fine purple colour, which drops off when the flowers open. The upper part of the spike is made up of male flowers, which are not succeeded by fruit, but fall off with their covers. The fruit or plantain is