By Dr. Allardyce Hurlbutt. Posted on 29 June 2013.
The English writer Hector Hugh Munro (1870-1916), better known as Saki, had a flare for names. One of his finer inventions was "Filboid Studge," an unpalatable breakfast cereal foisted on a credulous world by a clever commercial artist.[1] The name, as it happens, is an anagram of "boiled fig dust."[2] And while many anagrams are matters of pure coincidence, Saki, who delighted in puns and verbal cleverness, surely intended this one, particularly as fig-dust was at the time the common name for a powdered oatmeal fed to birds. The English, of course, have long scorned the humble oat,[3] and in Saki's story, the new cereal is so disgusting that an infantry regiment "mutinied and shot its officers rather than eat the nauseous mess."
Setting our portion of Filboid Studge gratefully aside untasted, one is left wondering why powdered oatmeal should have come to be known as "fig-dust."
In such moments of linguistic perplexity, the Archelaus staff naturally turns to its trusty office copy of the Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford, 1933). Unfortunately, the OED entry for fig (originally published in 1896) offers little help.[4] Fig-dust appears without etymological explanation among other "special comb[inations]" (namely fig-apple, fig-banana, fig-bean, fig-bird, fig-blue, fig-cake, fig-eater, fig-fauns, fig-finch, fig-flower, fig-frail, fig-gnat, fig-marigold, fig-pecker, fig-peepul, fig-shell, fig-sue, fig-Sunday, and fig-water) and is defined, citing the Century Dictionary (New York, 1889-91), as "finely ground oatmeal, used as food for caged birds." All these so-called special combinations are listed separately from the "simple attrib[utive]" fig-box, -drum, -juice, -plaster, -skin, -tart, -wasp, -wood, and -yard, the adjective fig-like, and the "objective" fig-gatherer, -lover, and -seller.
Admittedly, we do learn that the word fig itself ultimately has its origin in the Latin ficus. Old English borrowed the Latin word directly, as fíc, which seemingly survived briefly into Middle English as fike or fyke, only to lose out to the more au courant Old French fige or figue (first attested in 1225: "Swete frut, Þet me clepeð figes"). Over time, fig developed several secondary meanings, one of which seems at least potentially relevant here, for the diminutive size of figs led quite early to a meaning of "anything small, valueless, or contemptible" (first attested c. 1400: "He fortherit [i.e., availed] neuer a fyge with his fight yet"; and c. 1450: "A Figge for all her chastite!"). It thus seems possible that powdered oatmeal came to be called fig-dust because it was ground excessively fine, even to the point of being almost valueless, or as the old saying has it, "not worth a fig."
In the quest for further useless knowledge of this sort, one is well advised to turn to the internet and especially the extraordinary (though endlessly frustrating) resource of Google Books. Even if doing so seems unlikely to resolve this particular etymological question, it should provide interesting examples of usage, where the OED offers none at all.
And indeed the earliest example to present itself dates all the way back to 1477. It takes the form of a lease agreement (as summarized by an archivist in 1892) for a mill outside of Dublin. The lessee, one John Kenane, was appointed miller for life in exchange for "a stipend of the sixth measure of malt and other grains, the profits of the mill, together with the 'fykeduste' (figdust)."[5] There does not appear to be any necessary connection yet with oats, the context suggesting instead that "fykeduste" probably meant whatever fine flour dust the mill produced.
The next occurrence dates to 1663, when a woman in the Massachusetts Bay Colony was accused of "putting fig dust in Mr. Greeneland's bed" and then blaming someone else for it.[6] Although a twentieth-century historian describing the incident glossed fig-dust as "tobacco shavings," she provided no evidence to support this claim.[7]
The first instances connecting fig-dust with bird feed make their appearance in the early eighteenth century. An undated manuscript of this era thus recommends that to fatten pullets or capons, "take barley meale 3 parts and figg dust of oats one part and make crams of it in paste feeding them twice or thrice a day."[8] Notably the anonymous author seems to have felt a need to specify that the fig-dust intended was "of oats" and not some other kind. A second example derives from the startling scientific experiments of the British surgeon John Belchier (1706-85). Obtaining a rooster, he mixed "Madder Root with Fig Dust, on which they feed." The unfortunate fowl failed to thrive on this questionable diet and indeed died within sixteen days. "I dissected him, and examin'd the Bones, not in the least Expectation of finding them ting'd in so small a Time; but, to my great Surprize, found them universally of a Red Colour: So that, from this Experiment, it appears, that the Madder alone causes this Alteration."[9] Both of these examples relate to poultry, rather than the cagelings promised by the Century Dictionary, and in 1799 a popular guide to animal husbandry recommended yet another use for fig-dust: mixing it with milk to feed pigs, "though milk alone will fatten a pig sufficiently for pork."[10]
In 1812, one James Waugh was charged with "feloniously stealing" six pounds of flour, valued at three shillings, from his employer. Waugh reportedly claimed "that he had taken it for fig-dust to Colonel Ponsonby's house at Hampstead, and finding his error, he had brought it home and concealed it in the stable." A Middlesex jury acquitted him.[11]
To be sure, it is the use of fig-dust to feed cage-birds that is best documented. In 1775, the celebrated naturalist Gilbert White (1720-93) rescued a young swift from some rampaging children. "A little meat and hard egg mixed with bread," he noted, "and a good deal of finely sifted fig dust (which is, I believe, oatmeal, from oats which have not been kiln-dried), and given, not very moist, in little pellets, agreed with it perfectly."[12] Keeping cage-birds was to become a Victorian passion, and by 1825 there was already a song lamenting that "My thrush, though with fig-dust fed, in April seldom sings."[13] By 1829, young ladies were under instruction to feed their caged throstles and black ouzels "raw or parboiled meat, sopped bread, stale bun, scalded fig-dust, or bruised hemp-seed and chopped egg mixed with crumbs of bread."[14] Although references to feeding fig-dust to poultry reappear in 1850 (re: turkeys)[15] and 1866 (setting hens),[16] from the 1840s to the 1900s the specialist literature is thick with instructions for using it to nourish various wild birds in captivity, especially blackbirds and thrushes. In 1843, for example, a guide to keeping British cage-birds recommended taking baby blackbirds from the nest when they were ten or twelve days old and feeding them "bullock's heart, sheep's heart, or any other sort of lean and fresh meat, chopped fine and mixed with fig dust."[17] H. L. Meÿer's lavishly illustrated guide to the birds of Britain, published in seven volumes from 1842 to 1850, likewise recommended fig-dust for ruffs and thrushes.[18] In 1889, another guide to keeping cage-birds advised that captive blackbirds "should be fed upon a mixture of animal and vegetable food, raw or cooked lean beef, shredded finely and mixed with bread crumbs, stale bun, and hard-boiled egg, a very little German paste,[19] and the same food as the Thrush, of barley meal, or what is called by dealers 'fig-dust' (ground oats), mixed with water into a crumbly paste, a meal-worm, or a few small garden worms, snail, earwig, or spider occasionally."[20] In 1896, Cassell's Complete Book of Sports and Pastimes advised that for captive thrushes, "the staple food is what is generally called fig dust, really, finely-ground oats, mixed into a stiff dough with half milk and half water."[21] Finally, in 1903, at the tail end of the craze, the third edition of J. Denham Bradburn's British Birds stated that barley meal is "preferable to sharps[22] or fig dust, because [it is] much more nutritious,"[23] while in his Hints on Cage-Birds (British and Foreign), Arthur G. Butler (1844-1925), a self-taught naturalist at the British Museum, recalled his own recipe for a "paste made of two parts oat flour ('fig dust,' so called), and one part pea flour, with the addition of small worms, smooth caterpillars, and snails dropped into hot water, taken from the shells and cut up."[24]
The popular journals of the day bristled with similar recommendations. "'Fig-dust,' moistened with water into a stiff paste, to which add an equal quantity of bruised hemp-seed, is the most wholesome food for young thrushes and blackbirds," advised Sharpe's London Magazine in 1852.[25] In response to an innocent inquiry that same year from young Isabella E. ("What is the proper Food for Young Birds? They are now becoming plentiful, and I want to know how to feed them."), Kidd's Own Journal warned: "Use no fig-dust, and do not attempt to give them German paste, or any dry food, until they are nearly two months old."[26] In 1865, Once a Week decreed that "young thrushes, if brought up by hand from the nest, are to be fed on meal-worms and a fine paste made of fig-dust mixed with water,"[27] while in 1874, Hardwicke's Science-Gossip advocated feeding baby starlings "scalded bread, fig dust, hard-boiled egg, and a little bruised hemp-seed, well mixed; or you may give them fig-dust and raw meat, taking care to prepare them fresh food daily."[28] Two years later, The Country had suggestions on the rearing of blackbirds: "Give them their first meal at sunrise, and this meal should be composed of raw beef or mutton minced very finely, and mixed into a stiff paste with fig dust or bread crumbs (the former preferred), in which, for the sake of variety, may be sprinkled occasionally some scalded rapeseed or Naples biscuit."[29] In 1895, Gardening Illustrated advised a reader wishing to rear young jays that "bread and milk, with a little lean meat cut fine, or a paste made of Oat flour, or Fig-dust and Pea-meal, mixed with milk or water, and given fairly moist, will be found suitable."[30] Finally, in 1905, The Country-Side explained that "young blue-tits will be best fed on . . . gentles (well scoured in sand), mealworms, small caterpillars, houseflies (caught in wire traps and killed by being put into the oven for a minute), and a little freshly-made paste consisting of fig-dust and dried ant-eggs mixed up with water."[31]
Of course, some readers were eager to write in with their own experiences. "Feed the [blackbird or thrush] nestlings on ground oats and sharps mixed with milk," a correspondent urged the Journal of Horticulture, Cottage Gardener, and Country Gentleman in 1866, "and with a flattened stick feed them every two hours as long as they will open their mouths. . . . Sharps, I think, is sold in London under the name of toppings[32] or figdust."[33] "I have made several trials with mixed bread and eggs and a little fig dust, with an occasional feed of ants' eggs;" wrote a reader of Country Life in 1903 regarding young sparrows, "but my success has not been great, nearly all the birds dying when about two months old."[34]
Given all this frenzied activity, it should hardly be surprising that fig-dust made what seems to have been its first dictionary appearance in 1872, when it was defined as "a name among mealmen for fine ground oatmeal, sold for feeding cage birds."[35]
In New Zealand, the lack of native predators to destroy insect pests led to the importation of British birds — and the purchase of fig-dust to sustain them on the long ocean voyage to the Antipodes. In 1874 the Queen Bee sailed for the North Island with a cargo of 650 birds, including blackbirds, thrushes, and partridges. "The food for the birds . . . cost just over one hundred pounds, including thirty-three pounds for over one and a half tonnes of patent poultry feed, one pound ten shillings for a similar amount of bird gravel, four pounds for eight bushels of hemp seed, three pounds four shillings for sixteen bushels of fig dust, three pound[s] twelve shillings for nine bushels of pheasant and partridge mixture, and two pounds eight shillings for four bushels of canary seed."[36]
In 1875, a missionary in North Africa was unfavorably impressed by the native couscous. "It reminded me," he reported, "of some mess called fig-dust, with which, in our school-days, we used to feed young thrushes and blackbirds."[37]
The cheapness of fig-dust led to occasional figurative uses. "Several, to be sure, were rather jealous of her," wrote the novelist Albert Richard Smith (1816-60) in 1849, "and these, with great bitterness, would speak of her father's money as 'fig-dust.'"[38] "Talk of 'sophisms' and 'exact sciences,'" exclaimed the Journal of Gas Lighting in 1855, "'fiddlesticks and fig-dust!' — let us have 'common sense' and 'common honesty' in the investigation of 'common things.'"[39] "But I am told that he is as rich as King Karoon," wrote an anonymous contributor to Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Arts in 1857, "and scatters about his piasters as though they were but fig-dust."[40]
Of course, dubious uses for fig-dust were inevitably found. In 1882 a speaker in the British House of Commons denounced unscrupulous grocers for selling coffee containing "a large proportion of fig-dust, or beans, or chicory."[41] In 1900, a reader inquired of the Pharmaceutical Journal about the use of fig-dust for killing moths. "Probably powdered colocynth is what is meant," was the reply, "though we have never heard it called fig-dust. That is the name generally given to fine oatmeal powder, used by boys to feed young birds."[42]
Just as keeping cage-birds was going out of fashion, however, a legitimate new use for fig-dust was discovered: cleaning fabrics and furs. In 1910, the Aberdeen Daily Journal thus advised any of its readers who might wish to clean a white feather boa: "Purchase from the chemist two pennyworth of fig dust, make it hot, a small quantity at a time, and rub it well into the boa. When thoroughly cleaned rub well in a dried cloth. This progress will be found an excellent way of cleaning white furs, dresses, light coats, etc."[43] In 1911, The Woman's Book of Household Management similarly recommended cleaning upholstered furniture with fig-dust,[44] while The New Magazine reported: "White or light coloured felt hats can be cleaned with hot fig dust, which can be purchased at any corn-chandler's. Heat the fig dust in a basin in the oven, and rub well into the soiled felt. Then to remove the fig dust beat well with a thin cane, and finally brush with a clean brush."[45] In 1922, the newly inaugurated British edition of Good Housekeeping also judged fig-dust "excellent" for cleaning lightly soiled light cloth garments.[46] The particular usefulness of fig-dust for cleaning furs, however, received increasing emphasis as time went on. In 1915, the book Household Management thus suggested the following procedure: "Rub them with bran which has been heated in the oven, using the hand for the process. Shake the bran well out and then rub the fur with fig dust until quite clean, after which shake them well to get rid of the fig dust. (Fig dust may be bought at a corn-chandler's or oil shop.)"[47] Admittedly, there was some disagreement on the type of fur for which the product was best suited. In 1925, the book Domestic Handicrafts recommended it specifically for furs with short, close hairs, to which warm bran tended to cling.[48] In 1927, the magazine Homes and Gardens favored its use for light-coloured furs.[49] In 1933, a guide to Home Dry-Cleaning and Laundry Work advocated using it instead for cleaning dark furs (preferring calcined magnesia for white ones).[50] In 1937, The Complete Illustrated Home Book compromised, recommending fig-dust for gray or fawn-coloured furs.[51]
With the outbreak of the Second World War, the care of furs in Britain no doubt lost priority in the larger scheme of things, and references to fig-dust virtually ceased. In 1949, however, the Daily Mail did recommend fig-dust to its mostly lower middle-class readership for cleaning "pale-hued repps and faced cloths."[52] Since then, however, fig-dust has seldom been mentioned outside the realm of imaginative literature — as when the heroine of a historical novel set in turn-of-the-century Dublin "looked on forlornly as the girls beat at her fur muff with fig dust and freshened her black cape with benzine."[53]
It should be stressed that "fig-dust" appears to have been strictly a British term. A lone Australian example occurs in a publication of the South Australian Department of Agriculture from 1939, recommending that furs be cleaned with fig-dust — "a fine meal much used by furriers for this purpose and sold by many household stores and chemists."[54] The only American instance among the many examples cited above (the Century Dictionary aside) was the early one from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. A further stray reference from 1949 in the memoirs of a pretentious American oenophile leaves it unclear whether the writer did not know what fig-dust actually was, or did know and was just trying, rather feebly, to be clever.[55] In the case of a recent fantasy novel, however, the author's confusion on the subject is obvious from his characters' dialog:
"When you get your inn going again and there are rabbits running everywhere, will you cook me one that's crispy with fig dust?"
"I would if there were any figs to be had," said Maude.[56]
An obscure poetry journal called Figdust, edited by a graduate student at the University of Georgia, began publishing in spring 1999. It is now defunct.
NOTES
[1] Saki, "Filboid Studge, the Story of a Mouse that Helped," originally published in Bystander (London), 7 December 1910, and collected in H. H. Munro (Saki), The Chronicles of Clovis (London, 1911). Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., was later inspired to name one of the characters in his novel Breakfast of Champions (New York, 1973) "Philboyd Studge."
[2] Fred Abrams, "Onomastic Humor in Saki's 'Filboid Studge, the Story of the [sic] Mouse that Helped,'" Names: Journal of the American Name Society 19 (1971): 287-88.
[3] Cf. Dr. Johnson's famous definition of it as "a grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people." Samuel Johnson, "Oats" in Dictionary of the English Language (London, 1755), unpaginated.
[4] As does the online version. The entry for fig was not usefully updated for the OED's second edition in 1989 and has yet to be for its third, currently in preparation.
[5] The Twenty-Fourth Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records in Ireland (Dublin, 1892), 107.
[6] Records and Files of the Quarterly Courts of Essex County, Massachusetts, vol. 3 (Salem, 1913), 66n.
[7] Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650-1750 (New York, 1991 [1980]), unpaginated. Possibly she was influenced by the existence of another secondary meaning of fig, namely "(of tobacco): a small piece" (OED).
[8] Henry William Lewer, ed., A Book of Simples (London, 1908), 101.
[9] John Belchier, "A further Account of the Bones of Animals being made Red by Aliment only," Philosophical Transactions, no. 443 (1736): 300.
[10] John Trusler, Practical Husbandry, or, The Art of Farming, with a Certainty of Gain, as Practised by Judicious Farmers in this Country: The Result of Experience and Long Observation, 4th ed. with great additions (London, 1799), 86.
[11] Old Bailey Proceedings, 16 September 1812, case of James Waugh (reference number t18120916-155) at http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?path=sessionsPapers%2F18120916.xml (accessed on 22 June 2013).
[12] Gilbert White, The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne, new ed. (London, 1837), 281n.
[13] The Universal Songster, or, Museum of Mirth: Forming the Most Complete, Extensive, and Valuable Collection of Ancient and Modern Songs in the English Language, vol. 1 (London, 1825), 368.
[14] The Young Lady's Book: A Manual of Elegant Recreations, Exercises, and Pursuits (London, 1829), 231.
[15] "The usual fatting food is a mixture of barley-meal and fig-dust—that is, fine oatmeal—moistened into rather a firm paste with melted lard." James Main, A Treatise on the Breeding, Rearing, and Fattening of Poultry, 4th ed. (London, 1850), 69.
[16] "I lift my sitting hen off at the same time every morning, provide her with a dust bath, clean water, and food (whole barley or fig dust), and before she is allowed to return to her nest I place her on the wet grass, so that her feet and under feathers may be slightly damped: this plan I prefer to sprinkling the eggs." Journal of Horticulture, Cottage Gardener, and Country Gentleman 36 (1866): 53.
[17] T. Andrewes, Directions for Keeping British Cage Birds: Description and Habits of Each Species; Best Modes of Prevention and Cure of the Several Distempers to Which They Are Subject; How to Distinguish the Cock from the Hen; with Every Particular to Keep Them in Full and Rich Melody of Song (London, 1843), 3.
[18] H. L. Meÿer, Coloured Illustrations of British Birds and Their Eggs, 7 vols. (London, 1842-50), vol. 2, p. 19, and vol. 5, p. 63.
[19] "A food sold for certain kinds of cage birds, as blackbirds, thrushes, larks, &c. made of pea-meal, hemp-seed, maw-seed, lard, and honey or treacle." P. L. Simmonds, A Dictionary of Trade Products, Commercial, Manufacturing, and Technical Terms (London, 1858), 171.
[20] C. E. Dyson, Bird-keeping: A Practical Guide for the Management of Singing and Cage Birds, rev. and large ed. (London, 1889), 55.
[21] Cassell's Complete Book of Sports and Pastimes (London, 1896), 707.
[22] According to the OED, "The finer particles of the husk and the coarser particles of the flour of wheat and other cereals (separated from the bran and the fine flour in the process of milling); the 'midlings' between bran and flour" (first attested 1801). It states further: "The Lutterworth Advertiser of 3 Feb., 1912, reports a case heard at Petty Sessions in which the plaintiff, supported by the County Analyst, maintained that the term was applied to the 'middlings' of wheat only, while the defendant and trade witnesses asserted that 'sharps might contain rice, oats, tapioca; it was a general name for mill offals'."
[23] J. Denham Bradburn (with Allen Silver), British Birds: Their Successful Management in Captivity with Other Allied Information for Fanciers, 3d rev. and enl. ed. (London, 1903), 14.
[24] Arthur G. Butler, Hints on Cage-Birds (British and Foreign) (London [1903]), 27. Elsewhere Butler had described his efforts to care for a group of orphaned sand martins: "The idea of giving them their natural food being out of the question, I mixed up for them a paste consisting of four parts of fig-dust and pounded dog-biscuit, two parts pea-meal and yolk of egg, and one part ants' eggs." The Zoologist: A Monthly Journal of Natural History, 3d ser., 11 (1887): 348. Later he recalled his early efforts with song-thrushes, blackbirds, and starlings: "At first I fed these with a mixture of what is popularly called fig-dust (oat-flour) and pea-meal, given very wet until the birds were old enough to drink." The Avicultural Magazine, 3d ser., vol. 4 (1913-14): 106.
[25] Sharpe's London Magazine, n.s. 1 (1852), 331-32.
[26] Kidd's Own Journal 1 (1852): 364.
[27] Once a Week: An Illustrated Miscellany of Literature, Art, Science, and Popular Information 12 (1864-65), 238.
[28] Hardwicke's Science-Gossip 10 (1874): 152.
[29] The Country: A Journal of Rural Pursuits 6 (1876): 278. The OED offers only a plaintive question mark in lieu of a definition for Naples biscuit, though the term is first attested in 1699 ("Make them into Cakes or Loaves cut long-wise, in shape of Naples-Biscuit."). An early form of dry sponge-cake, the Naples biscuit is now known as a "ladyfinger." They were sometimes served at funerals in the eighteenth century, due to their fancied resemblance to coffins, but by the nineteenth they were primarily used as a cooking ingredient.
By Northern custom, duty was exprest,
To friends departed by their fun'ral feast.
Tho' I've consulted Hollingshead and Stow,
I find it very difficult to know
Who to refresh th'attendants to a grave,
Burnt-claret first, or Naples bisket gave.
William King, "The Art of Cookery" (1709), lines 93-98.
[30] Gardening Illustrated 17 (1895-96): 145.
[31] The Country-Side 1 (1905): 134.
[32] According to the OED, "the best bran (dial.)."
[33] Journal of Horticulture, Cottage Gardener, and Country Gentleman 35 (1866): 336.
[34] Country Life 13 (1903): 655.
[35] P. L. Simmonds, The Commercial Dictionary of Trade Products, Manufacturing and Technical Terms, new rev. and enl. Ed. (London, 1872), 437. There is no entry for fig-dust in the 1858 edition cited in n. 19, above.
[36] Joan Druett, Exotic Intruders: The Introduction of Plants and Animals into New Zealand (Auckland, 1983), 112.
[37] Mission Life, n.s. 6, pt. 1 (1875), 39.
[38] Albert Smith, The Pottleton Legacy (London, 1849), 9.
[39] Journal of Gas Lighting 4 (1855): 265.
[40] Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Arts 8 (1857), 169.
[41] Hansard Parliamentary Debates, 3d series, vol. 273 (1882), col. 239.
[42] Pharmaceutical Journal 65 (1900): 120.
[43] "Woman's World," Aberdeen Daily Journal, 6 December 1910, p. 4.
[44] Florence Jack, The Woman's Book of Household Management: Everything a Woman Ought to Know (Stroud, 2007 [1911]), 75. Note that this use of fig-dust is absent from Jack's earlier book, The Art of Laundry Work, 2d ed. (Edinburgh, 1896).
[45] New Magazine [April 1911], 132.
[46] "This is like meal in appearance, and can be bought at any corn-chandler's or household stores. Brush the garment first to remove all dust; then lay it on a sheet, sprinkle it with fig dust and rub it well in with the fingers. Wrap up in the sheet and let it remain some hours. Then brush off with a soft, clean brush and shake out." Good Housekeeping 1 (1922): 60.
[47] E. Stoddart Eckford and M. S. Fitzgerald, Household Management: A Handbook of Domestic Economy and Hygiene (London, 1915), 374.
[48] M. Helen Murray, Domestic Handicrafts (London, 1925), 82.
[49] "It is of a powdery nature similar to fine barley meal. It can be purchased from some corn chandlers, but is not as easily obtained as bran." Homes and Gardens 9 (1927): 455.
[50] Margaret Struan, Home Dry-Cleaning and Laundry Work (London, 1933), 43.
[51] The Complete Illustrated Home Book (London, 1937), 97. This source noted that fig-dust cost 3½d a pint.
[52] "Clothes Are What You Make Them," Daily Mail (London), 4 October 1949, p. 4.
[53] Clare Boylan, 11 Edward Street (New York, 1992), 52. Since the cleansing powers of fig-dust do not seem to have been discovered until around 1910, their invocation here appears to be a slight anachronism.
[54] South Australia, Journal of the Department of Agriculture 43 (1939): 171.
[55] "40,000 cases of figs, original weight forty pounds or so per case. Said figs had indubitably once upon a time come from ancestral fig tree, but that had evidently been in the far-far-away. Even the worms had had their fill and departed; and now ashes to ashes and dust to fig dust." Stuart Olivier, Wine Journeys (New York, 1949), 256. The Kirkus review of Olivier's book was scathing: "Here, in a cliche-cluttered prose, are memoirs of Olivier's 'pilgrimages' in search of 'wine glory and loveliness.' . . . The memoirs, per se, in their undisguised sentimentality [and] overfond indulgence can only be irritating save to a few devotees." Review at https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/stuart-olivier/wine-journeys/ (accessed on 24 June 2013).
[56] Patrick Carman, Rivers of Fire (New York, 2008), 284.
