FIGS.—The Romans had many sorts of figs, black and white, large and small; one as large as a pear, another no larger than an olive. [The fig has been cultivated in England ever since 1562. It is omitted by Tusser in his list of fruits cultivated in our gardens. Cardinal Pole is said to have imported from Italy that tree, which is still growing in the garden of the Archbishop’s palace at Lambeth. It is the oldest fig tree that is known in this kingdom. In the Percy Household-book, the person who had the charge of providing for the consumption and use of the Earl of Northumberland’s numerous family, was ordered to purchase four coppets of figs, for which he was to pay twenty pence for each coppet. This quantity was to serve for one year.] MEDLARS.—The Romans had two kinds of medlars, the one larger, and the other smaller. MULBERRIES.—The Romans had two kinds of the black sort, a larger and a smaller. Pliny speaks also of a mulberry growing on a briar: _Nascuntur et in rubis_, (1. xv. sect. 27) but whether this means the raspberry, or the common blackberry, does not appear. [The mulberry, _Morus_, is a native of Persia, whence it was introduced into the southern parts of Europe, and is commonly cultivated in England, Germany, and other countries where the winters are not very severe. “We are informed,” says Forsyth in his treatise on fruit trees, “that mulberries were first introduced into this country in 1596; but I have reason to believe that they were brought hither previous to that period, as many old trees are to be seen standing at this day about the sites of ancient abbeys and monasteries, from which it is at least probable that they had been introduced before the dissolution of religious houses. Four large mulberry trees are still standing on the site of an old kitchen garden, now part of the pleasure-ground, at Sion House, which, perhaps may have stood there ever since that house was a monastery. The first Duke of Northumberland has been heard to say, that these trees were above 300 years old. At the Priory near Stanmore, Middlesex, (the seat of the Marquis of Abercorn) there are also some ancient Mulberry trees. The Priory was formerly a religious house.” Gerard in his description of the mulberry tree has the following curious paragraph: “Hexander in Athenæus affirmeth, that the mulberry trees in his time did not bring forth fruit in twenty years together; and that so great a plague of the gout reigned and raged so generally, as not only men, but boys, and women were troubled with that disease.” Tusser, in his list of fruits cultivated in England in 1573 enumerates the Mulberry.—Gerard, who published his history of plants in 1597, says in that book, that Mulberry Trees then grew in sundry gardens in England.] NUTS.—The Romans had Hazel Nuts and Filberds. They roasted these Nuts.