THE FIG TREE AND ITS FRUIT.

Otago Witness, Issue 2104, 21 June 1894, Page 4

THE FIG TREE AND ITS FRUIT.

By Apabata Rbnata.

The fig tree was grown extensively by the ancients, and its fruit formed one of the principal articles of sustenance amoDg the Greeks and Spartans. There were numerous regulations among them in connection with its export and sale. Old writers mention no end of varieties, which olaimed different merits. Some species are very small and slow of growth, forming only trailing shrubs ; others again are rapid growers, and trees of their species attaia an enormous height. Most of the large and rapid-growing species bear useless fruit. Some of these give a milky fluid, 'from which is made couchou or indiarubber. Almost all the species possess this fluid in a greater or lesser degree. Fig trees for producing fruit are sometimes raised from seeJ, from which new varieties are often procured, but the usual, way, which ensures regular required varieties,is to graft, layer, bud, or grow from suckers of good seedlings, or from cuttings of good varieties. They can be grafted successfully on the plum tree or seedling fig trees. Young plants are very easily affected with frost, but when a few years old they are hardy, and require little or no protection from frost in New Zealand.

Fig trees were introduced into England early in the sixteenth century, and when properly treated they have borne plenty of fruit. In Scotland some varieties bear exceedingly well when treated as a wall fruit. In England it is usual to treat them in this manner, but they bear well as standards in warm localities. In the counties of Kent and Sussex there are some small orchards entirely planted with fig trees. The ground required to grow figs to perfection is a porous, well-drained rich loam, and a fig border in England is of no value unless the soil is a rich friable loam on a subsoil not retentive of moisture. The varieties most cultivated in England are — for forcing and growing under glass or in large pots, the black Iscbia, brown Turkey, early white, and the Marseilles or Fique Blanche ; for orchards or walls, the black Genoa, Madonna Miller's chestnut fig, Pregussata, Leesperpetual, white Genoa, &c. It may be as well to mention that the names are not reliable, and disputes often arise as to their application. Those given are the names generally used in England, and some of these varieties can be had at Dunedin nurseries. The two best varieties grown on the Spanish Peninsula are called commadre'B (grandmother's) and breba. The grandmother grows to an immense size, and has large mauve fruit, larger than a duck's egg. This variety is of no use for sun drying, but the fruit is delicious when fresh. The trees of this variety are in many places in Spain and Portugal so large that small hats are bnilt on their branches for using in the two fig harvests in the year as sentry houses. The sentries live in these huts, and are there, principally to scare birds away, from daylight till dark. If the fruit is seriously injured they are dismissed and replaced by others. This is very necessary, as on a hot day every fig that has been pecked even slightly by black or other birds allows its luscious syrup to flow and becomes worthless in a few hours. The breba, a small green fig, is the one used on the Spanish Peninsula for drying, and is extensively exported to all parts of the world.

The principal place for dried figs is Smyrna, whence are shipped the figs grown in Asia Minor. These go under the name of elemi. Undried figs are now preserved in tins, and are much superior to those sent to market in boxes. A few tons of these were imported here by Mr Thomas Eeynolds from Portugal, and sold very freely. Some of the tins were opened by me three years after being imported, and the fruit was still quite fresb, sweet, and wholesome.

Figs, to be of any value for eating, must be perfectly ripe before they are gathered. Their colour when ripe varies very much, some varieties being nearly black, some deep purple, some green, others yellow, and some nearly white. Two crops are usually procured from all the species if properly grown. The commercial or drying varieties generally grow on medinm-sized trees, which seldom reach 20ft in height. Alcohol, and a pleasant wine, Is still made in some places out of figa.

Some idea of the value of figs commercially may be formed when it is mentioned that Britain alone imported them to the value of £318,717 in 1876, and last year over half a million was imported.

Figs are very easily grown, and the trees give large crops if they are once thoroughly established. In Australia most decent gardens can boast of a few trees, and I can

well remember a tree only 10 years old in Richmond, Victoria, from which a neverceasing crop was secured. Although it is 30 years since I feasted off it, I can longingly remember the flavour of those beautiful purple luscious fruit.

Pot plauta and wall trees require careful pruning, aad should never be allowed to produce too many fruit at a time.

In New Zealand, although figs grow almost wild from Central Otago to the north of Auckland, there are none offered for sale. This is partly attributable to the fact that figs do not paok well ripe, nor ripen well enough when gathered green to be considered fit for human food. Still, there is little excuse for there not being a local supply, as with proper care they can be grown and ripened either^as wall fruit or on standard trees in warm aspeots. I know a wretchedly neglected tree which bears freely, and, sometimes ripens its fruit, 300 ft above sea level, on a cold clay bank.and not trained on a wall, in Danedin. In Central Otago two crops are secured from some trees, and there is no reason why thousands of trees have not been planted there. Once a good variety either from seed or from importations is grown and ripened, and there is no question about its flavour, it could be named and used for securing buds and shoots for grafting purposes.

The fig is good medicinally as a laxative, and is much used for many purposes in household economy. The way fig culture has been neglected— and indeed this applies to many other fruit and tree — does not say much for the general intelligence or forethought of colonists. The hurry-scurry for securing immediate gains has almost ruined most historical colonies, and we in New Zealand, although not quite so greedy, should look a little ahead, seeing bow distant we are placed from all other countries, and how we 'have to pay two and three freights and no end ot other transit charges. We have a country that can produce every luxury and necessary to our wants, and once again I must urge myr fellows colonists to try to grow everything, and in time to only import iron and other aseful metals.

There is no question that we can grow figs and save in time thousands a year on them alone. Fancy paying 8d a pound for what is grown and dried for Id a pound in Asia Minor, France, Spain, Portugal, or California ! It is deplorable.