88 THE FIG: ITS HISTORY, CULTURE, AND CURING. 
to be grown. The principal feature of a good caprifig orchard is 
that there should always be figs of a proper size to receive the wasps 
whenever they hatch out. If such figs are wanting the wasps will 
die, as they can not live for any length of time outside of the fig. There 
must be a crop of caprifigs for every crop of Blastophaga wasps. The 
female wasps are fertilized before they leave their galls in the figs, 
and are immediately ready to lay their eggs in young caprifigs. The 
failures experienced in California in establishing Blastophaga colonies 
on the caprifig trees growing there were partly due to lack of figs of 
proper size. The wasps were brought over from Asia Minor without 
any difficulty, but upon their arrival the caprifigs possessed only large 
figs, none of the size suitable for the wasps to breed in. The fact that 
some caprifigs do not produce any fertile seeds, although they have 
both perfect male and female flowers, results from the fact that, as in 
the edible fig the male flowers shed their pollen first long after the 
female flowers have passed their state of receptivity. Such caprifigs 
must be caprificated, just as edible figs, in order to produce seeds. 
THE FIG, 
The fruit which we eall a fig is really not one single fruit, but a large 
number of fruits (or flowers) placed on a common receptacle. The 
fig itself is this receptacle, and in its interior are seen the small fruits 
or the flowers if the fig is unripe. 
If we cut open a fig lengthwise we see first, exteriorly, a fleshy, 
homogeneous mass, the receptacle proper, inclosing a central hollow, 
which connects with the outside through a narrow passage at the eye. 
Lining this central hollow on the inner surface of the receptacle are 
seen an almost innumerable quantity of small, apparently similar 
flowers, which are fleshy, of even size, and a little deformed, and 
which apparently only slightly resemble flowers with which we are 
generally acquainted. These are, however, the true flowers of the 
fig. They fill the whole interior surface of the receptacle, except close 
to and at the ‘‘ eye,” where they are replaced by scales or small leaf- 
lets, which latter interlock and form a thatched obstruction in the 
throat of the fig. This is generally the appearance of the fruit of the 
common or edible fig tree. 
The wild fig or eaprifig is somewhat differently constructed, a dif- 
ference, however, which is of the utmost importance and interest. 
In the caprifig we find, besides the scales at the eye and in the 
throat, not less than three different and distinct flowers covering the 
interior of the receptacle—male, female, and gall flowers. The male 
flowers occupy the place nearest below the scales of the throat, while 
the lower parts of the receptacle are filled with gall flowers and a few 
female flowers. The proportion of these flowers is different in the 
different crops of the figs. The hibernating ‘‘mamme” or third crop 
possesses male flowers and many gall flowers, but no female flowers. 
