279. _The FIG is the pulpy fruit of a shrub, or low tree_ (Ficus carica,
Fig. 83), _which is a native of the South of Europe, and some parts of
Asia._
_Fig-trees are branched from the bottom, and the leaves are large,
smooth, and irregularly divided into from three to five deep and rounded
lobes. The fruit grows on short and thick stalks, of purplish colour, and
contains a soft, sweet, and fragrant pulp, intermixed with numerous small
seeds._
It appears from history, both sacred and profane, that the fig-tree was an
object of attention in the earliest times. This fruit was one of the most
common and favourite aliments of the ancient Greeks, and constituted a very
valuable food with the peasants of some parts of Italy. Fig-trees are now
much cultivated in Turkey, Italy, and the Levant, as well as in Spain and
some of the southern parts of France. All the islands of the Archipelago
yield figs in abundance, but these are in general of very inferior quality.
The trees are propagated either by suckers, by layers, or by cuttings; and
the process of increasing and ripening the fruit is an art which requires
much attention. This, as it is practised in the Levant, is called
_caprification_, and is performed by wounding the buds of the figs, with a
straw or feather dipped in sweet oil at a certain period of their growth.
Figs are dried either by a furnace or in the sun, after having been dipped
in a scalding ley made of the ashes of the fig-tree. In this state they are
used both in medicine, and as food; and are considered more wholesome and
more easy of digestion than when fresh. They form a considerable branch of
commerce, and are exported, in boxes of different size and shape, to nearly
all the northern parts of Europe. When we receive them, their surface is
usually covered with a saccharine matter which has exuded from the fruit. A
small and cheap kind of fig is imported in small frails or baskets from
Faro.
There are numerous varieties of the fig, but the common purple kind is the
hardiest of the whole. This is frequently cultivated in our gardens; and,
if screened from the north-east winds, it ripens, even: with us, in
tolerable perfection.
The wood of the fig-tree is of spongy texture, and, when charged with oil
and emery, is much used on the Continent by locksmiths, gun-smiths, and
other artificers in iron and steel, to polish their work. It is almost
indestructible, and on this account was formerly employed in eastern
countries as coffins for embalmed bodies.
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