Chaps. 18-23.

Chap. 18. (16.)—The Mode of Keeping Various Fruits and Grapes.

For the better preserving of fruits it is universally recommended that the storeroom should be situate in a cool, dry spot, with a well-boarded floor, and windows looking towards the north; which in fine weather ought to be kept open. Care should also be taken to keep out the south wind by window panes, [“Specularibus.” He alludes to windows of transparent stone, lapis specularis, or mica; windows of glass being probably unknown in his time. The ordinary windows were merely openings closed with shutters. See B. xxxvi. c. 45.] while at the same time it should be borne in mind that a north-east wind will shrivel fruit and make it unsightly. Apples are gathered after the autumnal equinox; but the gathering should never begin before the sixteenth day of the moon, or before the first hour of the day. Windfalls should always be kept separate, and there ought to be a layer of straw, or else mats or chaff, placed beneath. They should, also, be placed apart from each other, in rows, so that the air may circulate freely between them, and they may equally gain the benefit of it. The Amerinian apple is the best keeper, the melimelum the very worst of all.

(17.) Quinces ought to be stored in a place kept perfectly closed, so as to exclude all draughts; or else they should be boiled in honey [He must allude to a kind of quince marmalade.] or soaked in it. Pomegranates are made hard and firm by being first put in boiling [As Fée remarks, the fruit, if treated thus, would soon lose all the properties for which it is valued.] sea-water, and then left to dry for three days in the sun, care being taken that the dews of the night do not touch them; after which they are hung up, and when wanted for use, washed with fresh water. M. Varro [De Re Rust. B. i. c. 59.] recommends that they should be kept in large vessels filled with sand: if they are not ripe, he says that they should be put in pots with the bottom broken out, and then buried [A faulty proceeding, however dry it may be.] in the earth, all access to the air being carefully shut, and care being first taken to cover the stalk with pitch. By this mode of treatment, he assures us, they will attain a larger size than they would if left to ripen on the tree. As for the other kinds of pomes, he says that they should be wrapped up separately in fig-leaves, the windfalls being carefully excluded, and then stored in baskets of osier, or else covered over with potters’ earth.

Pears are kept in earthen vessels pitched inside; when filled, the vessels are reversed and then buried in pits. The Tarentine pear, Varro says, is gathered very late, while the Anician keeps very well in raisin wine. Sorb apples, too, are similarly kept in holes in the ground, the vessel being turned upside down, and a layer of plaster placed on the lid: it should be buried two feet deep, in a sunny spot; sorbs [This fruit, Fée remarks, keeps but indifferently, and soon becomes soft, vinous, and acid.] are also hung, like grapes, in the inside of large vessels, together with the branches.

Some of the more recent authors are found to pay a more scrupulous degree of attention to these various particulars, and recommend that the gathering of grapes or pomes, which are intended for keeping, should take place while the moon is on the wane, [An absurd superstition.] after the third hour of the day, and while the weather is clear, or dry winds prevail. In a similar manner, the selection, they say, ought to be made from a dry spot, and the fruit should be plucked before it is fully ripe, a moment being chosen while the moon is below the horizon. Grapes, they say, should be selected that have a strong, hard mallet-stalk, and after the decayed berries have been carefully removed with a pair of scissors, they should be hung up inside of a large vessel which has just been pitched, care being taken to close all access to the south wind, by covering the lid with a coat of plaster. The same method, they say, should be adopted for keeping sorb apples and pears, the stalks being carefully covered with pitch; care should be taken, too, that the vessels are kept at a distance from water.

There are some persons who adopt the following method for preserving grapes. They take them off together with the branch, and place them, while still upon it, in a layer of plaster, [A method not unlikely to spoil the grape, from the difficulty of removing the coat thus given to it.] taking care to fasten either end of the branch in a bulb of squill. [A very absurd notion, as Fée observes. To keep fruit in millet is also condemned.] Others, again, go so far as to place them within vessels containing wine, taking care, however, that the grapes, as they hang, do not touch it. Some persons put apples in plates of earth, and then leave them to float in wine, a method by which it is thought that a vinous flavour is imparted to them: while some think it a better plan to preserve all these kinds of fruit in millet. Most people, however, content themselves with first digging a hole in the ground, a couple of feet in depth; a layer of sand is then placed at the bottom, and the fruit is arranged upon it, and covered with an earthen lid, over which the earth is thrown. Some persons again even go so far as to give their grapes a coating of potters’ chalk, and then hang them up when dried in the sun; when required for use, the chalk is removed with water. [Which, of course, must deteriorate the flavour of the grape.] Apples are also preserved in a similar manner; but with them wine is employed for getting off the chalk. Indeed, we find a very similar plan pursued with apples of the finest quality; they have a coating laid upon them of either plaster or wax; but they are apt, if not quite ripe when this was done, by the increase in their size to break their casing. [It is doubtful if they will increase in size, when once plucked.] When apples are thus prepared, they are always laid with the stalk downwards. [The modern authorities recommend the precisely opposite plan.] Some persons pluck the apple together with the branch, the ends of which they thrust into the pith of elder, [As absurd as the use of the bulb of squill.] and then bury it in the way already pointed out. [In a pit two feet deep, &c. See.] There are some who assign to each apple or pear its separate vessel of clay, and after carefully pitching the cover, enclose it again in a larger vessel: occasionally, too, the fruit is placed on a layer of flocks of wool, or else in baskets, [Capsæ.] with a lining of chaff and clay. Other persons follow a similar plan, but use earthen plates for the purpose; while others, again, employ the same method, but dig a hole in the earth, and after placing a layer of sand, lay the fruit on top of it, and then cover the whole with dry earth. Persons, too, are sometimes known to give quinces a coating of Pontic [See B. xxi. c. 49.] wax, and then plunge them in honey.

Columella [De Re Rust. B. xii. c. 43.] informs us, that fruit is kept by being carefully put in earthen vessels, which then receive a coating of pitch, and are placed in wells or cisterns to sink to the bottom. The people of maritime Liguria, in the vicinity of the Alps, first dry their grapes in the sun, [These must make raisins of the sun.] and wrap them up in bundles of rushes, which are then covered with plaster. The Greeks follow a similar plan, but substitute for rushes the leaves of the plane-tree, or of the vine itself, or else of the fig, which they dry for a single day in the shade, and then place in a cask in alternate layers with husks [These must have been perfectly dry, or else they would tend to rot the grapes or raisins.] of grapes. It is by this method that they preserve the grapes of Cos and Berytus, which are inferior to none in sweetness. Some persons, when thus preparing them, plunge the grapes into lie-ashes the moment they take them from the vine, and then dry them in the sun; they then steep them in warm water, after which they put them to dry again in the sun: and last of all, as already mentioned, wrap them up in bundles formed of layers of leaves and grape husks. There are some who prefer keeping their grapes in sawdust, [Columella, for instance, B. xii. c..] or else in shavings of the fir-tree, poplar, and ash: while others think it the best plan to hang them up in the granary, at a careful distance from the apples, directly after the gathering, being under the impression that the very best covering for them as they hang is the dust [The dust is in reality very liable to spoil the fruit, from the tenacity with which it adheres. In all these methods, little attention would seem to be paid to the retention of the flavour of the fruits.] that naturally arises from the floor. Grapes are effectually protected against the attacks of wasps by being sprinkled with oil [A detestable practice, Fée says, as the oil makes an indelible mark on the grape, and gives it an abominable flavour. It is the best method to put the fruit in bags of paper or hair.] spirted from the mouth. Of palm-dates we have already spoken. [See B. xiii. c..]

Chap. 19. (18.)—Twenty-Nine Varieties of the Fig.

Of all the remaining fruits that are included under the name of “pomes,” the fig [There are about forty varieties now known.] is the largest: some, indeed, equal the pear, even, in size. We have already mentioned, while treating of the exotic fruits, the miraculous productions of Egypt and Cyprus [B. xiii. c.,. These are the Ficus sycomorus of Linnæus.] in the way of figs. The fig of Mount Ida [In Troas; called the Alexandrian fig, from the city of Alexandria there. Fée doubts if this was really a fig, and suggests that it might be the fruit of a variety of Diospyros.] is red, and the size of an olive, rounder however, and like a medlar in flavour; they give it the name of Alexandrian in those parts. The stem is a cubit in thickness; it is branchy, has a tough, pliant wood, is entirely destitute of all milky juice, [No fig-tree now known is destitute of this.] and has a green bark, and leaves like those of the linden tree, but soft to the touch. Onesicritus states that in Hyrcania the figs are much sweeter than with us, and that the trees are more prolific, seeing that a single tree will bear as much as two hundred and seventy modii [Fée treats this as an exaggeration.] of fruit. The fig has been introduced into Italy from other countries, Chalcis and Chios, for instance, the varieties being very numerous: there are those from Lydia also, which are of a purple colour, and the kind known as the “mamillana,” [From “mamilla,” a teat.] which is very similar to the Lydian. The callistruthiæ are very little superior to the last in flavour; they are the coldest by nature of all the figs. As to the African fig, by many people preferred to any other, it has been made the subject of very considerable discussion, as it is a kind that has been introduced very recently into Africa, though it bears the name of that country. As to the fig of Alexandria, [In Egypt. The Figue servantine, or cordeliere.] it is a black variety, with the cleft inclining to white; it has had the name given to it of the “delicate” [“Delicata.” The “bon-bouche.”] fig: the Rhodian fig, too, and the Tiburtine, [Fée suggests that this may have been the small early fig.] one of the early kinds, are black. Some of them, again, bear the name of the persons who were the first to introduce them, such, for instance, as the Livian [From Livia, the wife of Augustus.] and the Pompeian [From Pompeius Magnus.] figs: this last variety is the best for drying in the sun and keeping for use, from year to year; the same is the case, too, with the marisca, [Apparently meaning the “marsh” fig.] and the kind which has a leaf spotted all over like the reed. [The Laconian reed, Theophrastus says, B. iv. c. 12.] There is also the Herculanean fig, the albicerata, [The “white-wax” fig.] and the white aratia, a very large variety, with an extremely diminutive stalk.

The earliest of them all is the porphyritis, [Fée queries whether it may not be the Grosse bourjasotte.] which has a stalk of remarkable length: it is closely followed by the popularis, [Or “people’s” fig. The small early white fig.] one of the very smallest of the figs, and so called from the low esteem in which it is held: on the other hand, the chelidonia [Or “swallow”-fig.] is a kind that ripens the last of all, and towards the beginning of winter. In addition to these, there are figs that are at the same time both late and early, as they bear two crops in the year, one white and the other black, [Or it may mean “white and black,” that being the colour of the fig. Such a variety is still known.] ripening at harvest-time and vintage respectively. There is another late fig also, that has received its name from the singular hardness of its skin; one of the Chalcidian varieties bears as many as three times in the year. It is at Tarentum only that the remarkably sweet fig is grown which is known by the name of “ona.”

Speaking of figs, Cato has the following remarks: “Plant the fig called the ‘marisca’ on a chalky or open site, but for the African variety, the Herculanean, the Saguntine, [A Spanish variety; those of the south of Spain are very highly esteemed.] the winter fig and the black Telanian [The modern “black” fig.] with a long stalk, you must select a richer soil, or else a ground well manured.” Since his day there have so many names and kinds come up, that even on taking this subject into consideration, it must be apparent to every one how great are the changes which have taken place in civilized life.

There are winter figs, too, in some of the provinces, the Mœsian, for instance; but they are made so by artificial means, such not being in reality their nature. Being a small variety of the fig-tree, they cover it up with manure at the end of autumn, by which means the fruit on it is overtaken by winter while still in a green state: then when the weather becomes milder the fruit is uncovered along with the tree, and so restored to light. Just as though it had come into birth afresh, the fruit imbibes the heat of the new sun with the greatest avidity—a different sun, in fact, to that [The sun of the former year.] which originally gave it life—and so ripens along with the blossom of the coming crop; thus attaining maturity in a year not its own, and this in a country, [In Mœsia—the present Servia and Bulgaria.] too, where the greatest cold prevails.

Chap. 20.—Historical Anecdotes Connected with the Fig.

[Another war is said to have originated in this fruit. Xerxes was tempted by the fine figs of Athens to undertake the invasion of Greece.] The mention by Cato of the variety which bears the name of the African fig, strongly recalls to my mind a remarkable fact connected with it and the country from which it takes its name.

Burning with a mortal hatred to Carthage, anxious, too, for the safety of his posterity, and exclaiming at every sitting of the senate that Carthage must be destroyed, Cato one day brought with him into the Senate-house a ripe fig, the produce of that country. Exhibiting it to the assembled senators, “I ask you,” said he, “when, do you suppose, this fruit was plucked from the tree?” All being of opinion that it had been but lately gathered,—“Know then,” was his reply, “that this fig was plucked at Carthage but the day before yesterday [“Tertium ante diem.” In dating from an event, the Romans included both days in the computation; the one they dated from, and the day of, the event.] —so near is the enemy to our walls.” It was immediately after this occurrence that the third Punic war commenced, in which Carthage was destroyed; though Cato had breathed his last, the year after this event. In this trait which are we the most to admire? was it ingenuity [In sending for the fig, and thinking of this method of speaking to the feelings of his fellow-countrymen.] and foresight on his part, or was it an accident that was thus aptly turned to advantage? which, too, is the most surprising, the extraordinary quickness of the passage which must have been made, or the bold daring of the man? The thing, however, that is the most astonishing of all—indeed, I can conceive nothing more truly marvellous—is the fact that a city thus mighty, the rival of Rome for the sovereignty of the world during a period of one hundred and twenty years, owed its fall at last to an illustration drawn from a single fig!

Thus did this fig effect that which neither Trebia nor Thrasimenus, not Cannæ itself, graced with the entombment of the Roman renown, not the Punic camp entrenched within three miles of the city, not even the disgrace of seeing Hannibal riding up to the Colline Gate, could suggest the means of accomplishing. It was left for a fig, in the hand of Cato, to show how near was Carthage to the gates of Rome!

In the Forum even, and in the very midst of the Comitium [A place in the Forum, where public meetings were held, and certain offences tried.] of Rome, a fig-tree is carefully cultivated, in memory of the consecration which took place on the occasion of a thunderbolt [He alludes to the Puteal, or enclosed space in the Forum, consecrated by Scribonius Libo, in consequence of the spot having been struck by lightning.] which once fell on that spot; and still more, as a memorial of the fig-tree which in former days overshadowed Romulus and Remus, the founders of our empire, in the Lupercal Cave. This tree received the name of “ruminalis,” from the circumstance that under it the wolf was found giving the breast— rumis it was called in those days—to the two infants. A group in bronze was afterwards erected to consecrate the remembrance of this miraculous event, as, through the agency of Attus Navius the augur, the tree itself had passed spontaneously from its original locality [On the banks of the Tiber, below the Palatine Mount. The whole of this passage is in a most corrupt state, and it is difficult to extract a meaning from it.] to the Comitium in the Forum. And not without some direful presage is it that that tree has withered away, though, thanks to the care of the priesthood, it has been since replaced. [By slips from the old tree, as Tacitus seems to say—“in novos fœtus revivisceret.”]

There was another fig-tree also, before the temple of Saturn, [At the foot of the Capitoline Hill.] which was removed on the occasion of a sacrifice made by the Vestal Virgins, it being found that its roots were gradually undermining the statue of the god Silvanus. Another one, accidentally planted there, flourished in the middle of the Forum, [Probably near where the Curtius Lacus had stood in the early days of Rome. The story of Metius Curtius, who leaped into the yawning gulph in the Forum, in order to save his country, is known to every classical reader.] upon the very spot, too, in which, when from a direful presage it had been foreboded that the growing empire was about to sink to its very foundations, Curtius, at the price of an inestimable treasure—in other words, by the sacrifice of such unbounded virtue and piety—redeemed his country by a glorious death. By a like accident, too, a vine and an olive-tree have sprung up in the same spot, [The Forum.] which have ever since been carefully tended by the populace for the agreeable shade which they afford. The altar that once stood there was afterwards removed by order of the deified Julius Cæsar, upon the occasion of the last spectacle of gladiatorial combats [See B. xix. c. 6.] which he gave in the Forum.

Chap. 21.—Caprification.

The fig, the only one among all the pomes, hastens to maturity by the aid of a remarkable provision of Nature. (19.) The wild-fig, [The Ficus Carica of Linnæus. It does bear fruit, though small, and disagreeable to the taste.] known by the name of “caprificus,” never ripens itself, though it is able to impart to the others the principle of which it is thus destitute; for we occasionally find Nature making a transfer of what are primary causes, and being generated from decay. To effect this purpose the wild fig-tree produces a kind of gnat. [This insect is one of the Hymenoptera; the Cynips Psenes of Linnæus and Fabricius. There is another insect of the same genus, but not so well known.] These insects, deprived of all sustenance from their parent tree, at the moment that it is hastening to rottenness and decay, wing their flight to others of kindred though cultivated kind. There feeding with avidity upon the fig, they penetrate it in numerous places, and by thus making their way to the inside, open the pores of the fruit. [Fée observes that the caprification accelerates the ripeness of the fruit, but at the expense of the flavour. For the same purpose the upper part of the fig is often pricked with a pointed quill.] The moment they effect their entrance, the heat of the sun finds admission too, and through the inlets thus made the fecundating air is introduced. These insects speedily consume the milky juice that constitutes the chief support of the fruit in its infant [“Infantiam pomi”—literally, “the infancy of the fruit.”] state, a result which would otherwise be spontaneously effected by absorption: and hence it is that in the plantations of figs a wild fig is usually allowed to grow, being placed to the windward of the other trees in order that the breezes may bear from it upon them. Improving upon this discovery, branches of the wild fig are sometimes brought from a distance, and bundles tied together are placed upon the cultivated tree. This method, however, is not necessary when the trees are growing on a thin soil, or on a site exposed to the north-east wind; for in these cases the figs will dry spontaneously, and the clefts which are made in the fruit effect the same ripening process which in other instances is brought about by the agency of these insects. Nor is it requisite to adopt this plan on spots which are liable to dust, such, for instance, as is generally the case with fig-trees planted by the side of much-frequented roads: the dust having the property of drying up [Fée denies the truth of this assertion.] the juices of the fig, and so absorbing the milky humours. There is this superiority, however, in an advantageous site over the methods of ripening by the agency of dust or by caprification, that the fruit is not so apt to fall; for the secretion of the juices being thus prevented, the fig is not so heavy as it would otherwise be, and the branches are less brittle.

All figs are soft to the touch, and when ripe contain grains [Frumenta.] in the interior. The juice, when the fruit is ripening, has the taste of milk, and when dead ripe, that of honey. If left on the tree they will grow old; and when in that state, they distil a liquid that flows in tears [A mixture of the sugar of the fruit with the milky juice of the tree, which is a species of caoutchouc.] like gum. Those that are more highly esteemed are kept for drying, and the most approved kinds are put away for keeping in baskets. [Capsis.] The figs of the island of Ebusus [See B. iii. c. 11. The Balearic Isles still produce great quantities of excellent dried figs.] are the best as well as the largest, and next to them are those of Marrucinum. [See B. iii. c. 17.] Where figs are in great abundance, as in Asia, for instance, huge jars [Orcæ.] are filled with them, and at Ruspina, a city of Africa, we find casks [Cadi.] used for a similar purpose: here, in a dry state, they are extensively used instead of bread, [Ground, perhaps, into a kind of flour.] and indeed as a general article of provision. [Opsonii vicem. “Opsonium” was anything eaten with bread, such as vegetables, meat, and fish, for instance.] Cato, [De Re Rust. c. 56.] when laying down certain definite regulations for the support of labourers employed in agriculture, recommends that their supply of food should be lessened just at the time [Because they would be sure, under any circumstances, to eat plenty of them.] when the fig is ripening: it has been a plan adopted in more recent times, to find a substitute for salt with cheese, by eating fresh figs. To this class of fruit belong, as we have already mentioned, [See B. xiii. c..] the cottana and the carica, together with the cavnea, [These were so called from Caunus, a city of Caria, famous for its dried figs. Pronounced “Cavneas,” it would sound to the superstitious, “Cave ne eas,” “Take care that you go not.”] which was productive of so bad an omen to M. Crassus at the moment when he was embarking [At Brundisium.] for his expedition against the Parthians, a dealer happening to be crying them just at that very moment. L. Vitellius, who was more recently appointed to the censorship, [A.U.C. 801.] introduced all these varieties from Syria at his country-seat at Alba, [Alba Longa. See B. iii. c. 9.] having acted as legatus in that province in the latter years of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar.

Chap. 22. (20.)—Three Varieties of the Medlar.

The medlar and the sorb [The sorb belongs to the genus pirus of the naturalists.] ought in propriety to be ranked under the head of the apple and the pear. Of the medlar [The Mespilus germanica of the botanists.] there are three varieties, the anthedon, [The azarolier, a tree of the south of Europe, the Mespilus apii folio laciniato of C. Bauhin.] the setania, [The Mespilus Italica folio laurino serrato of C. Bauhin, the Mespilus cotoneaster of J. Bauhin.] and a third of inferior quality, which bears a stronger resemblance to the anthedon, and is known as the Gallic [Its identity is matter of uncertainty; but it has been thought to be the Cratægus oxyacantha of modern botanists.] kind. The setania is the largest fruit, and the palest in colour; the woody seed in the inside of it is softer, too, than in the others, which are of smaller size than the setania, but superior to it in the fragrance of their smell, and in being better keepers. The tree itself is one of very ample [By “amplissimus,” he must mean that it spreads out very much in proportion to its height, as it is merely a shrub.] dimensions: the leaves turn red before they fall: the roots are numerous, and penetrate remarkably deep, which renders it almost impossible to grub it up. This tree [Fée thinks it a tree indigenous to the north.] did not exist in Italy in Cato’s time.

Chap. 23. (21).—Four Varieties of the Sorb.

There are four varieties of the sorb: there being some that have all the roundness [The ordinary sorb-apple of horticulturists.] of the apple, while others are conical like the pear, [The sorb-pear.] and a third sort are of an oval [Varying but little, probably, from the common sorb, the Sorbus domestica of Linnæus.] shape, like some of the apples: these last, however, are apt to be remarkably acid. The round kind is the best for fragrance and sweetness, the others having a vinous flavour; the finest, however, are those which have the stalk surrounded with tender leaves. A fourth kind is known by the name of “torminalis:” [Fée is inclined to think that it is the Sorbus terminalis of Lamarck. Anguillara thinks that it is the Cratægus of Theophrastus, considered by Sprengel to be identical with the Cratægus azarolus of Linnæus. In ripening, the fruit of the sorb undergoes a sort of vinous fermentation: hence a kind of cider made of it.] it is only employed, however, for remedial purposes.

The tree is a good bearer, but does not resemble the other kinds, the leaf being nearly that of the plane-tree; the fruit, too, is particularly small. Cato [De Re Rust. cc. 7 and 145.] speaks of sorbs being preserved in boiled wine.