Pretty
good fig trees are about the size of the apricot tree, and yield about
twenty pounds of figs when dry, each. But the largest will yield the
value of a louis. They are sometimes fifteen inches in diameter. It is
said that the Marseilles fig degenerates when transported into any other
part of the country. The leaves of the mulberry tree will sell for about
three livres, the purchaser gathering them. The caper is a creeping
plant. It is killed to the roots every winter. In the spring it puts out
branches, which creep to the distance of three feet from the centre. The
fruit forms on the stem, as that extends itself, and must be gathered
every day, as it forms. This is the work of women. The pistache grows in
this neighborhood also, but not very good. They eat them in their milky
state. Monsieur de Bergasse has a wine-cellar two hundred and forty
_pieds_ long, in which are one hundred and twenty tons, of from fifty to
one hundred _pieces_ each. These tons are twelve _pieds_ diameter, the
staves four inches thick, the heading two and a half _pouces_ thick. The
temperature of his cellar is of 9 1/2 deg.
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