rket. To many communities figs are at once meat and
pocket-money. To lose the harvest is not to be thought of. The aspect of
the means of preventing such a disaster is altogether a secondary
consideration. Dokhar at all hazards is the cry of men, women and children.
The comparative cessation of fig-wars is one of the blessings due to French
rule.

[Illustration: ROAD ACROSS THE DJURJURA AT MOUNT TIROURDA.]

What we deem the fruit of the fig is, it will be remembered, only the husk,
the apparent seeds being the true fruit and--before ripening--the blossom.
A small fly establishes itself in the interior of the wild fig, escaping in
great numbers when the fruit is ripe. This happens before the ripening of
the improved fig, and the fly is supposed to carry the wild pollen to the
flowers of the latter. A single insect, say the Kabyles, will perfect
ninety-nine figs, the hundredth becoming its tomb. Some varieties of figs
do not need caprification, but they are said to be unsuitable for drying or
shipment.

The Italian practice of touching the eye of each fig, while yet on the
tree, with a drop of olive oil seems opposed to the African plan; since the
oil would certainly exclude the insect. And there are no better figs in the
world than those of the Southern States of the Union, which are not
treated in either way, and receive the least possible cultivation of any
kind. Those States, if it be true that the difference in the yield of a
"caprified" and non-caprified tree is that between two hundred and eighty
and twenty-five pounds, cannot do better than borrow a leaf from the Kabyle
book, should it only be a fig-leaf to aid in clothing the nakedness of bare
sands and galled hillsides. The United States Department of Agriculture
should by all means introduce the dokhar. Some of our agricultural
machinery would be an exchange in the highest degree beneficial to the
other side.

[Illustration: THE PEAK OF TIROURDA.]

Long before the French occupation the Kabyles had maintained a regulation
which is, we believe, peculiar in Europe to France--the _ban_, or
legally-established day for the beginning of the vintage and the harvest of
other fruits. The cultivator may repose under his own vine and fig tree,
but he shall not until the word is given by the proper authority put forth
his hand to pluck its luscious boon, though perfectly mature or past
maturity. Exceptions are made in case of invalids and distinguished guests,
and doub