One of the most obvious difficulties in establishing a fig orchard arises from the fact that the young trees are tender and easily injured by the cold. Figs start very early in the season, and the frequently occurring spring frosts often catch them in quite vigorous growth. This does no great harm to old trees; though the young leaves are killed, they soon push out again, and as the principal crop of fruit is borne on the new wood the crop is not much injured. With young trees, however, it is different, as the tissues of the trunk are softer. Fine, thrifty trees of one or two years’ growth are killed to the ground by a slight freeze after their spring growth has started. They may start again from the root, but their vitality is injured and they do not seem to fully recover. Such trees at 3 or 4 years old are often no larger than after the first summer’s growth. Young trees also suffer much more severely than old ones from extreme cold in winter, even when entirely dormant. It would appear that the shelter afforded by buildings and yard fences may sufficiently protect young trees from damage, when in an open space they would be severely injured. Then, if from a dozen cuttings stuck down in such out-of-the-way places only two or three grow, they are seen and remembered, while the failures are forgotten, whereas an orchard row showing a stand of only one-fourth is very unsatisfactory. The dooryard tree usually gets the benefit of ashes and house-slops, and perhaps the wash from the barnyard. These sources of fertility are all beneficial, for the fig is a gross feeder. Its roots are never broken by the plow, which is another great advantage, for the fig has a shallow rooting habit and does not thrive when its feeding roots are disturbed. In the light soils of the South it is extremely difficult to keep plows and cultivators from running so deep as to do serious injury to fig trees, and the proper cultivation or treatment of a fig orchard is therefore a serious question. Many growers advise against plowing after the first year, but the tree will not thrive if choked with grass and weeds. To keep a large orchard clean with a hoe is no small undertaking. Some advocate heavy mulching to keep down weeds, and that is doubtless often advisable, but the hard, clean-swept southern dooryard seems to suit the root habit of the fig better than any system of cultivation yet devised. Another point to be considered is that the fig suffers severely from root knot when planted in the fields where vegetables or cowpeas have been grown, as the nematodes causing this trouble multiply in the roots of all such crops. In planting a fig orchard care should be taken to select new land that is known to be free from these pests.