Wasps, Bees, and Ants 



489 



Smyrna fig. Of course the female Blastophaga entering a Smyrna fig and 

 dying there leaves no [progeny, for she lays no eggs. It is therefore necessary 

 to maintain a plantation of capriligs in or near the Smyrna orchard. These 

 bear three crops or generations of figs: one, the "profichi," ripening in the 



Fig. 691. — Figs showing effect of non-caprification and of caprification. a, outside 

 appearance of non-caprificd fig; h, outside of caprified fig; c, interior of caprified 

 fig; d, interior of non-caprified fig. (.^fter Howard; natural size.) 



spring; another, the "mammoni," ripening in the late summer; and the third, 

 or "mamma?" generation, which hangs on the trees through the winter. By 

 means of these successive generations of caprifigs a series of three genera- 

 tions (or sometimes four) of Blastophaga appear each year. 



In this country California fruit-growers have long grown figs, but they 

 were of a quality very inferior to the well-known Smyrna, whose home is in 

 Asia Minor. But the persistent efforts of an orchard-owner of the San Joa- 

 quin Valley, Mr. George Roeding, with the assistance of expert entomolo- 

 gists of the United States Division of Entomology, have resulted, after numer- 

 ous unsuccessful trials extending over ten years, in establishing by direct 

 importation from Algeria the Blastophaga in California, and the pro- 

 duction of figs of the same quality as that of the Asiatic fruit. From capri- 

 fig-trees (grown from cuttings originally imported from Smyrna) scattered 

 through a sixty-acre orchard of Sm)Tna fig-trees (also obtained from imported 

 cuttings and which Mr. Roeding maintained for fourteen years without any 

 financial return) figs containing Blastophagas ready to issue are taken off, 

 strung on short raffia strings, and hung on the branches of the Smyrna fig- 

 trees when the Smyrna fruit is ready for fertilization. In 1900 the first crop 

 of California Smyrna figs was obtained — .sixty tons, all from this orchard — 

 and it is now practically certain that the colonization of the tiny chalcidid fly, 

 Blastophaga grossorum, in California has added another important fruit 

 to the list of horticultural products of that State. 



