ON THE CAPRIFICATION OF THE FIG. 213 



ence of many years had proved to them the importance of it. 

 Sometimes we came to the proof. When I showed them fruits 

 not caprified ripening at the same time as others that were capri- 

 fied, the most sensible of them replied that that depended on the 

 soil, but that did not affect the property the insect has of making 

 those fruits into which it penetrates set and ripen early. If then 

 I showed them the number of fruits fallen from a caprified and a 

 non-caprified tree, they always claimed the advantage ; and if I 

 said that the same fig, as the Sarnese, for instance, ripened at 

 Ischia abundantly without the caprifig, they said that depended 

 on the soil and on habit. Our cultivators hold it for a maxim 

 that if a fig has once had the caprifig applied, even the white 

 fig, which in their opinion does not require it, it feels ever after 

 the influence; and as if having once tasted of it gets a bad habit, 

 will the following year only produce few fruits without the 

 caprifig. Besides, seeing the insect with so much industry and 

 ardour work its way from scale to scale into the inside of the fig 

 cannot, in their opinion, but produce some eflTect. With such 

 and similar matter it will be admitted that I may be quite 

 satisfied. 



§ 19. Conclusions. 



From the facts above stated it appears clearly — 



1. That to understand well the effects of caprification, it is in 

 the first instance necessary to know the nature of the fig and of 

 the caprifig, and what connection they have with each other. 

 And we have seen that the caprifig is not the male of the fig, as 

 has been hitherto believed, but a species so different from it, 

 that it may well be taken as the type of a distinct genus. 



2. The structure of domestic figs, as well of those to which 

 the caprifig is applied as of others, is perfectly similar in as far 

 as concerns the organs of the flower, the structure of the seed, 

 and of th*e receptacle ; so that it does not appear how the insect 

 of the caprifig can be necessary to some varieties only. 



3. And we have seen by experiment that the insect neither 

 hastens the maturity nor causes the fruit to set, whether of early 

 or late figs, nor yet is it necessary for fecundation. 



4. That the circumstance of the caprifig losing early many 

 of the fruits in which the fly has not been bred, does not serve 

 to prove the necessity of caprification, but rather to refute the 

 doctrine completely, as the fly does not breed in the domestic 

 fig ; and besides, we have seen that when the caprifig bears a 

 large crop of fruits, many of them fall unripe, even though the 

 insect has been in it, and the grub be found in the ovaries. 



5. And in respect of the caducity of the fruits of some figs, 

 the causes must be sought for chiefly in the constitution and 

 mode of vegetation of those varieties ; and also in the soil, cli- 

 mate, and vicissitudes of the season. 



