128 THE FIG: ITS HISTORY, CULTURE, AND CURING. 
first brought into cultivation by man, and before the present race of 
figs, which requires no caprification in order to set and mature, had 
originated. The class of figs which the Italians considered as requir- 
ing caprification had been shown to set fruit without this operation; 
the class that once required caprification must, therefore, have been 
lost, and been superseded by a better, more modern class, evolved 
from the former. He comes to the following conclusion: 
Caprification was once, ages ago, a necessity; it is now no more useful, but only 
a horticultural operation, transmitted from generation to generation, down to our 
time, and in its original form. Its scientific importance as means for judging the 
‘modifications undergone by our economic plants (culturpflanzen) in the course of 
ages can hardly be overestimated. 
It is hardly necessary for me to remark that Solms-Laubach’s con- 
clusions were based on his belief that this race, once requiring capri- 
fication, has been lost, has ‘‘died out,” as no longer of value. Now, 
if this race has not died out, but can be proven to be yet extant and 
to constitute our best figs, the conclusion arrived at by Solms-Laubach 
must fall. Professor Solms-Laubach has since acknowledged the 
correctness of this. 
A late contribution from the author’s knowledge of caprification is 
found in his Biological Studies of Figs, Caprifigs, and Caprification, 
already referred to several times. These experiments were conducted 
in various places in California, and have, in the author’s judgment, 
conclusively proven that caprification is a process of pollination by 
the aid of wasps; that it is a necessity in order to cause the Smyrna 
figs to bear; that the first crop of San Pedro figs does not require 
caprification, while the second crop of this tribe of figs will not set and 
mature fruit without it. The writer has also show n that there is a 
fourth kind of flower in the fig—the mule flower. He has also pointed 
out for the first time that we possess five distinet tribes of edible figs, 
the nature of which he has deseribed, and has endeavored to trace 
the phylogenetic origin, showing that while the Smyrna figs have 
descended from the female caprifig tree the other tribes may have 
descended from the male caprifig tree. From the nature of the seed- 
lings grown from imported and caprificated Smyrna seeds he has also 
demonstrated that caprification is a process of pollination and not one 
of irritation, as has been supposed by the majority of investigators 
since the time of Aristotle. The latest as well as the best work on 
caprification, however, is from the pen of Dr. L. O. Howard, of the 
United States Department of Agriculture. Dr. Howard is the only 
entomologist who has attacked this difficult subject with a thorough 
knowledge of insect life and its relationship to plants. As a conse- 
quence little in the life history of the Blastophaga now remains to be 
elucidated, and the reader who wishes a more detailed account of this 
subject is referred to Dr. Howard’s work published in the Yearbook 
of the Department of Agriculture for 1900. It was published too late 
to be quoted in this paper. 
