122 THE FIG: ITS HISTORY, CULTURE, AND CURING. 
one which sets fruit without caprification. Theophrast was the first 
one to point this out, and he must have learned it through observa- 
tion of the various fig varieties grown in histime. Another statement 
made by this writer is to the effect that caprificated figs had a lesser 
commercial value than figs not thus caprificated. Whatever may 
have been the case at this time, it is not so now. If Theophrast’s 
statement is correct it can be explained by the fact of the Smyrna 
tribe not thriving in Greece or by their unimproved state at that 
time. 
Theophrast also mentions how ignorant cultivators, instead of using 
‘aprifig, suspended other substances in the trees, such as galls from 
elm trees, the peasant believing that the wasps emerging from these 
elm galls would have the same effect as fig wasps. Of course, if the fig 
tree in which they were suspended belonged to a race which did require 
caprification, the effect of either variety of wasps (or of any other 
foreign substance) would be the same or none. Theophrast’s explana- 
tion of the effects of caprification is similar to that given by Aristotle. 
He rejects the theory that the wasps close the eye of the fig and, 
through the prevention of the entrance of the air, cause maturity. 
On the contrary, he maintains that the wasps enlarge the eye of the 
fig, causing its juices to flow, suck up the superfluous ‘‘ humors” of the 
fig, and that the warm and fermentation-producing air then effects the 
maturing of the figs. The differences between the two races of figs, 
of which one requires caprification and the other not, is explained by 
this author through the influence of soil and climate, as well as by a 
different nature of the fig, which enables it to ripen its fruit without 
the aid of the wasp. The circumstance that in Italy no eaprifieation 
was practiced at his time he explains by the supposed drier soil and 
climate of that country, which absorbs the superfluous juices of the 
fig. The humid climate of Greece, he contends, makes it necessary 
to employ the aid of the wasps in order to relieve the figs of their 
superfluous moisture. 
Pliny, the great Roman naturalist and compiler, follows Theophrast 
closely. He classes the caprifig as the wild fig, wanting in the juices 
necessary for the food of the wasps. The latter, not finding the 
necessary food, fly to the edible fig, and through nibbling enlarge 
the mouth of the fig and allow the fertilizing air to enter, which again 
transforms the milky juices of the fig to sweet honey. Pliny believed 
that caprification was practiced only in the Archipelago, from which 
it was later introduced into Italy. At the time of Pliny caprification 
was unknown in Italy. The account given by the great Latin natu- 
ralist is evidently only a compilation from other authors and from 
hearsay. He appears not to have made any personal investigations 
or examinations. 
Through all the medizeval ages, or for over fifteen hundred years 
after Pliny, horticulture and natural science made little progress, and 
