212 ON THE CAPEIFICATION OF THE FIG. 



leaving conjectures, which indeed are neither strange nor new, 

 on the effects of grafting, let us return to facts easily appreciated 

 by the senses. If the Colombro fig above mentioned bore so 

 large a crop of fruits, not by the effect of the graft, but merely 

 by having its boughs intermingled with those of the caprifig, 

 the same effect ought to be produced where they are so placed 

 without being united. And so I have seen it at Bajee, but 

 without the Colombro having on that account any more fruits 

 than others far from the caprifig. 



And I may now declare, that, after many years' researches, 

 and following up all the accounts and stories of cultivators, it 

 has never happened to me to hear of any fact, however strange, 

 new, or singular, on this subject, that might not be accounted 

 for otherwise than by the effects of the insect. 



§ 18. What account should be taken of the maxims and ex- 

 perience of cultivators on caprification. 



From all that is stated under the preceding heads I should 

 place no certain reliance on comparative observations made by 

 the lower orders on two trees, one caprified and the other not, to 

 observe the differences. For as differences in humidity, heat, 

 rain, atmospheric influences, soil, &c., often occur, that which 

 you may have thought you have ascertained one year will turn 

 out quite different another. Above all, a frequent cause of 

 error with us is, that two trees, believed to be individuals of one 

 variety, are, in fact, two distinct varieties raised from seed, but 

 so near to each other that cultivators do not perceive the differ- 

 ence. Varieties from seed have no limits in certain plants, and 

 are produced in such numbers that often they may not be distin- 

 guished at first sight by external signs, and often these differences 

 are only in the constitution, as, for example, in the horse- 

 chesnut ; the seeds of whicli, taken from one tree, will produce 

 a hundred individuals, which may be all alike in all their parts, 

 raised on the same soil, with the same exposure, and yet many of 

 them differing from the others in the number of fruits they bear 

 in proportion to their vigour, in their size, in the periods of their 

 budding and flowering. And that happens often to certain figs 

 which spring up everywhere about us from seed. Thus, in the 

 commencement of my researches, I was often deceived, believing 

 two trees to belong to one variety, when, after a time, I ascer- 

 tained that they were distinct varieties ; and this happens more 

 frequently to those races to which the caprifig is given, that is to 

 say, to the Lardaro, the Chiaja, and the Sarnese, which partake 

 much of the wild nature, and for that reason bear so much fruit. 



I have often discussed the subject with cultivators w^ell 

 informed, but preoccupied with the idea of caprification ; to 

 every contradiction of mine tliey put forward that the experi- 



