FIGS IN POTS.

There is perhaps no other fruit-bearing bush or tree that is more manageable or more productive when confined to pots than the fig. In this way it is most serviceable and easily cultivated throughout the season. But it is especially when very early forcing is required that plants in pots are to be recommended. They can also be made to bear in a very young and small state. I have struck them from eyes in February, and by shifting and pinching have formed comparatively large heads on a clear stem in 9-inch pots, with a good sprinkling of ripe fruit on them late in the autumn of the same year. This refers to Brown Turkey and one or two of the most free-fruiting varieties. For the propagation of figs to be permanently cultivated in pots, I refer to the directions already given under that head, as the process does not differ in any way from that recommended in the case of plants for planting in borders. The training of pot-plants is, however, different, inasmuch as the object desired is a plant with a bush-like head of bearing branches and twigs. As in the case of plants for borders, plants with clean single stems, about a foot high, are best for pots --such plants as may be described as dwarf standards.

Training, Pruning, &c.-Fig. 20, engraved from a photograph, represents a plant four years old from the cutting, in an 11-inch pot, bearing its second crop of fruit of the same season. It bore two heavy crops the previous year. To form such a plant, the point was pinched out of the cutting when about a foot high. When the several shoots with which it broke away into growth were long and strong enough to bear it, they were occasionally bent downwards with the hand, and

when they had grown 6 or 7 inches long, they had the terminal bud pinched out of them, and these shoots started away again with generally two growths. The plants were then shifted into 8-inch pots, and encouraged to grow in a warm moist house with plenty of light and air. After being well ripened they were pruned back,

each shoot to three eyes, except some which were short and stubby enough not to require it. The following spring it was, along with several dozens of others, some larger and some less, but all the same age, shifted into 11-inch pots after they began to grow, and they

bore two good crops, and have made plants that, with top-dressing and manure-watering, would continue for several years to bear fine fruit in the same pots. Still it is desirable to give them a small annual shift until they are put into 15-inch pots, which are large enough for any purpose. After they get into pots of the lastnamed size, and when they require stimulants in the way of fresh soil, the best way is to partially shake them out about the latter end of October, and cut back some of the strongest roots and pot them in fresh soil. By this means they can be kept in excellent bearing condition for many years.

After they begin to bear they require next to no winter pruning. It should all be done by summer pinching, removing entirely superfluous growths that would crowd the plants-pinching those that are left at every third or fourth joint. Varieties vary very much in their habit of growth; some make grosser and longerjointed wood than others, and require to be cut back after the leaves are shed. Such varieties, as a rule, are not so useful for pot-culture as the more stubby growers, and they seldom yield a satisfactory first crop, but bear chiefly a second crop on the young wood. These varieties are of course to be avoided when early fruit is desired, and it is for early crops that pot-figs are especially valuable. Always in winter pruning, wherever it is necessary, leave untouched all short stubby growths with a cluster of buds near their tops. These are the most fruitful parts of the trees, and are freely produced by well-established trees when bearing heavy crops.

While the plants are young and being trained, it is often necessary, in order to form the heads into proper symmetry, to have recourse to staking and tying the shoots or branches in their proper places. After the

plants get established, and what in pot-culture may be termed full grown, neither this nor much pruning is required beyond cutting out old wood to make room for new as occasion may require.

Soil for figs in pots.-The soil for plants in pots should be richer than has been recommended for borders. Two-thirds of rather a strong loam, with a third of horse-droppings and a little bone-meal, answers well in all pottings after the trees have arrived at a fruitbearing condition. I have sometimes plunged the pots in borders of soil for summer and autumn fruiting, and let them root through into the border, but do not recommend the practice. I approve of plunging the pots, but not of letting the roots leave the pots, and it should always be prevented. It induces the active roots to leave the pots where they are regularly fed, and causes gross shoots to be formed at the expense of the fruit and the general growth of the other parts of the trees. This applies more particularly to young growing trees. In the case of older and free-bearing trees there is less objection to the practice.

FORCING AND GENERAL MANAGEMENT.

There is perhaps no other fruit-bearing plant that submits with greater freedom and success than the fig to early forcing, and it certainly yields under favourable treatment a very good return in the shape of two crops of fruit annually. In some cases it has been made to produce a third crop by commencing to force early, and prolonging the process late in the season; but although this is possible, it is by no means desirable—for, besides the debilitating influence on the plants, the third crop is never fine in quality.

Where a regular succession of ripe figs is required from April to November, I recommend that there be a set of plants in pots, and another planted out, as has been treated of. Those in pots should be started about the new year, to ripen their first crop in April and May, and their second in July and August. Those planted out in borders, if started at the end of February or beginning of March, ripen their first crop in the end of May and June, and their second will be all gathered before the middle of October, thus keeping up the supply of ripe figs for at least six months of the year.

In beginning to force those in pots at, say, the beginning of January, it is very desirable that they be supplied with a gentle bottom-heat. Although this is not absolutely necessary, yet they start more freely into growth, the young fruit is less likely to drop off, and it swells better with bottom-heat than without. A house or pit in which figs can be thus early forced, may be, and generally is, used for other purposes besides. In some cases early strawberries are forced along with them on shelves on the back wall near the glass; in others, a pot-vine is fruited on each rafter; and in others, all these three fruits are forced in the same house. But there is no doubt that where circumstances admit of all these having compartments to themselves, they can be forced with less trouble and more success.

TEMPERATURE, WATERING, ETC.

In early forcing of every description, a lean-to light house, with a good command of both top and bottom heat, is best for figs. If oak-leaves can easily be got,