Iteport of Committee Mo. 6. 



THE FERTILISATION OF THE FIG IN THE 

 AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES. 



Members of Committee. — Mr. T. F. CUeeseman, Professor Haswell, 

 Mr. Thomas Kirk, Baron von Mueller, Mr. Skusc, Professor Tate, 

 Professor Thonras, Mr. C. French (Secretary). 



The Caprification of the Fig. 



Owing to a difficulty of getting Members together iu 

 order to draw up a progress report countenanced from all 

 sides, it seems best that at the next time the Chairman and 

 Secretary draw up early a statement of their own and circu- 

 late such amongst the Members, so as to enable them to give 

 their views on the subject. The Chairman of the Caprifica- 

 tion Committee had, at the meeting in Christchurch, given a 

 lengthy verbal explanation of the present state of the question 

 allotted to our investigation, and since then not much infor- 

 mation of a reliable nature has been forthcoming from any 

 paj'ticular country, except that in California measures had 

 been taken for acquiring there living plants of the Capri Fig- 

 by sending a special emissary to Smyrna with a view of 

 introducing the JBlastoj)haga grossorum into California, and 

 that this course had also for Australia been recommended at 

 the New Zealand meeting, and, further, that Mr. C. French, 

 the Government Entomologist of Victoria, had initiated some 

 similar measures for Victoria by opening u]) a correspondence 

 with the British Consul in Smyrna. 



The Committee really thinks that similar united efforts 

 should be made from all the Austrahan colonies if the results 

 obtained at San Francisco should prove sufficiently encourag- 

 ing to our expectations, namely, that a superior fig for drying 

 could be produced by the caprification method. It seems, 

 therefore, that every opportunity should be seized upon to 

 gain also from other fig-])roducing countries, either by the 

 issuing of circidar letters or by other means, the most recent 

 data as regards the production of the best kind of figs for 



