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.
CLASS XXIV.—CRYPTOGAMIA.
280. FERN, or BRAKE (Pteris aquilina), is a well-known cryptogamous plant, which grows wild on heaths, in woods, and in barren places.
Though this plant is an extremely troublesome weed to the farmer, from the roots penetrating deep into the ground, it is applied to various uses in rural œconomy. When cut and properly dried, it serves as litter for horses and cattle; and it supplies the place of thatch for covering the roofs of cottages and stacks. Where coal is scarce, it is used for the heating of ovens and burning of lime-stone.
The ashes of fern, from their yielding a tolerably pure alkali, are frequently used by manufacturers of glass, particularly in France. And, in some parts of our own country, the poor people mix these ashes with water, and form them into round masses which they call fern balls. These are afterwards heated in a fire, and then, with water, are made into a ley for the scouring of linen. They thus furnish a cheap substitute for soap.