198 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



figs of good quality the flowers must receive pollen from the 

 wild fig or caprifig. In Smyrna this pollination is performed 

 by a minute insect known as Blastophaga, and there were many 

 unsuccessful attempts to introduce this insect into California. 



Finally in the spring of 1899, after many unsuccessful ship- 

 ments, Mr. W. T. Swingle, who was traveling in Southern 

 Europe, gathering seeds and plants for the Department of 

 Agriculture, sent to this country eight boxes of caprifigs, 

 which were taken to California, cut open, and placed under 

 the tented tree to allow the Blastophaga insects to emerge and 

 work upon the flowers of the tree. 



After weeks and months of close study and observation it 

 was seen that the insects had become established in California, 

 and a few Smyrna figs of good quality were produced that 

 season. The little insects have survived the winters and have 

 multiplied to such an extent that for the present season the 

 crop of California amounts to nearly seventy-five tons of 

 choice Smyrna figs. 



The presence of certain kinds of mosquitoes in certain re- 

 gions have an important bearing not only upon agriculture, 

 but upon a still larger question — that of the public health. 

 That persons are infected with malaria and yellow fever 

 chiefly, if not entirely, through mosquito bites has now been 

 established beyond question. The mosquitoes act not merely 

 as carriers of the germs, but as secondary hosts of the disease 

 parasites. In other words, the organism must develop a cer- 

 tain stage inside the mosquito before it is possible for man 

 to contract the disease. The yellow fever germ is found only 

 in connection with mosquitoes belonging to the genus Stego- 

 myia, which live in the tropics, and the genus Anopheles is 

 wholly responsible for harboring and transmitting the ma- 

 larial parasite. Of course species of Anopheles occur in many 

 parts of the country where malaria is unknown, but malaria 

 does not occur habitually in localities outside the range of 

 Anopheles. This malarial mosquito, then, w^hich is a common 

 one here in Connecticut, can exist quite as well without the 

 malarial parasite; but if it bites a person suffering with the 

 disease it receives in the blood some malarial germs which 

 go through their development inside the insect, and after a 

 certain stage has been reached, if the mosquito bites another 

 person who is not immune this person may contract the dis- 



