154 ERYTHEA. 



As LONG AGO as 1880 and 1882 cuttings of the true Smyrna 

 Fig and Caprifig were imported into California and distributed 

 among the leading horticulturists of the state. These grew well 

 and eventually bore figs, but no fruit ever arrived at maturity. The 

 growers came at length to the conclusion^ that the wrong variety 

 had been received, and the trees have been generally uprooted. 

 The insect which accomplished caprificationwas not imported, but 

 that the failure was due to this cause^ was not understood until the 

 publication of Dr. Gustav Eisen's researches on "Figs, Caprifigs, 

 Caprification," In 1890 Smyrna figs, the first produced in Cali- 

 fornia, ripened at Fresno as a result of artificial pollination. The 

 later Italian students, especially Gasparrini, had concluded as a 

 result of their investigations, that the practise of caprification was 

 wholly legendary and not a necessary operation prerequisite to the 

 development of the fig, although they had unrivaled opportunity for 

 the study of the subject. This fallacy, so widely diflTused, was 

 exposed in the paper above quoted, and through the initiative of 

 leading California horticulturists the attention of Secretary Wilson, 

 of the Department of Agriculture, was directed to the necessity of a 

 special investigation of the problem. Mr. Wilson, therefore, in 

 detailing Dr. Walter T. Swingle, of the Bureau of Seed and Plant 

 Introduction, for field-work in the Mediterranean region, included 

 the Fig with the Date and other fruits, which were to be specially 

 studied. Dr. Swingle was given carte blanche^ and visited Algiers, 

 Italy, and Smyrna in Asia Minor, from which latter place in 1898 

 he sent male and female individuals of the species of Blastophaga, 

 wiiich does the work of caprification in the Mediterranean country. 

 The first consignment died out, but a later consignment, which was 

 liberated at Fresno in 1899, is thriving, and there is now no doubt 

 of the ultimate establishment of the insect in California. Dr. 

 Swingle arrived in California in the middle of October, for the 

 purpose of spending some weeks studying the conditions here, con- 

 ferring with the horticultural societies and organizations, and 

 determining the localities best suited to the growth and develop- 

 ment of the Fig. The symbiosis existing between the Blastophaga 

 and the Fig is by far the most remarkable and interesting case 

 known to botanists, and the establishment of this interdependent 

 plant and animal in California will be attended with no little 

 scientific interest. 



