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44 FRUITS IJNT THEIR SEASON.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
T. Pacts And Fictions Co^Stceening Pigs....
air and sunshine penetrate also , and tlms the fig is speedily ripened . JBranches of the wild fig were therefore sometimes brought from a
distance and tied upon the cultivated trees , but more usually a single wild tree was planted among the others , to windward of
them , so that the breeze might readily bear the insect guests to their banquet , fie addsthat on a thin soil or a site exposed to
cracks the east spontaneousl wind , the skin y , dispense of , the fi with gs would insect dry aid , and which thus was forming also
. sometimes replaced by planters pricking their fruit , with a quill , or , in the case of Egyptian figsby making incisions in them with iron
hooksa lan which acted , so effectuallthat the fruit would be ripe in , four p days after submitting to the y operationand the tree
, being so speedily relieved of its produce , would bear no less than seven crops in one yearthough it onlbore four if left to _natiire .
Tournefort , gives a similar , account of y caprification as carried on in modern days an the Greek Islandsexcept that the cultivators there
themselves ( i I could not collected , " observe the s he flies , _" sufficientl and , transferred y admire them the patience to their of trees the .
Greeks , busied above two months in carrying these flies from one tree to another . I was soon told the reason ; one of their fig-trees
produces between two and three hundred pounds of figs , and ours in Provence seldom above twenty-five pounds . " This _jDrocess was
formerly thought to improve the size and flavor of the fruitas well as to hasten its ripening , but is now considered by many , to have
the very opposite effect ; M . Olivier , the botanical traveller , concisely stigmatizing adherence to the custom as " a tribute which man
pays to ignorance and custom , " while Bosc significantly inquires , " Who would take it npion him to advise rendering les
wormeaten in order to enjoy the advantage of eating them app a fortnight sooner ?"
In Italy and Greece the fig-trees are left to grow according to nature ' s promptings , as tall upright stems with branches ; but in
France they are made to assume a stunted form . Loudon saw them at Argenteuilon the road to St . Deniscultivated like the
vine , and often mixed , with it in the open fields , , being only low bushes six or seven feet highthe branches divided into bundles
which are bent down in winter , and covered with earth . To bend and retain them on the surface with stakes , as is done with the
vines in the south of Germany , would be quite sufficient protection , but human muscle is _cheajoer here than anything elseand it is
therefore preferred to bury them , since that costs nothing , but labor . It was even said , that it would not pay to be at the expense of so
much as a bundle of straw to protect the centre of the plant . In spring the branches are disinterred , and the bundles untied , when
the figs on wood of the past year ripen well , but those on shoots of the current year are thought to require artificial aidafforded them
by an old woman with a phial of oil at her apron string , , and in her _,
hand a wheat straw " about nve inches long , which she places in the
44 Fruits Ijnt Their Season.
44 FRUITS _IJNT THEIR SEASON .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), March 1, 1861, page 44, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01031861/page/44/
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