CHAPTER IV. 
CAPRIFICATION OF THE FIG.! 
Caprification of figs is a practical process based on scientific princi- 
ples, which latter are as interesting and have been as badly misun- 
derstood as those connected with the practical part of the process. 
From time immemorial caprification has been practiced in certain 
countries, and practical results have been claimed forit. As regards 
the practical value of caprification, there are two distinct and oppo- 
site views held by different investigators. Some claim that caprifica- 
tion is necessary and valuable; others hold that it is useless. As 
regards the scientific principles involved, there are also various views 
put forward, as will be explained further on, some of which are 
radically opposite to others. The chief reason why this question was 
not solved long ago has been twofold. First, many of the scientific 
investigators have not been practical horticulturists; while others 
have not been aware that they experimented on figs which really did 
not require caprification, and which would not be benefited by it. 
Every investigator began and ended his researches with the errone- 
ous idea that all cultivated figs were alike, and he drew his conelusions 
accordingly. This alone explains the indifferent results achieved so 
far by European investigators. 
The many points involved in these interesting questions are both 
practical and scientific, and the two groups are so interwoven that the 
one can not possibly be understood without a full knowledge of the 
other. 
I am anxious that this may be understood in the beginning, as in 
the following pages practical details will be found hand in hand with 
scientific studies. The practical cultivator who knows but little of 
scientific phraseology would not understand the terms unavoidably 
used below, unless they were properly explained. Similarly, the sci- 
entific investigator, whose interest in this subject lies principally in 
the process of caprification and in its supposed value or uselessness, 
would not properly understand the practical details connected with 
the horticultural crops of the figs, unless they were explained in a way 
that may seem too elementary to the horticultural student or practical 
botanist. 
1A more extended treatise of this subject by the author was published in the 
Proceedings of the California Academy of Science in 1896, 
74 
