276 DISCOVERY en. 



not retain the flavour when dried. In the latter part 

 of the nineteenth century, an endeavour was made to 

 produce seed-bearing figs in California. A number of 

 cuttings of Smyrna fig-trees was obtained and planted, 

 but with no success. The failure was due to the fact 

 that the dried Smyrna fig owes its peculiar flavour to 

 the number of ripe seeds which it contains ; and these 

 seeds are only formed when the flowers of the cultivated 

 fig are fertilised with pollen derived from the wild fig, 

 or caprifig. 



Since time immemorial it has been the custom of 

 natives in Oriental regions to break off the fruits of the 

 wild fig, bring the branches to the edible fig-trees, and 

 tie them to the limbs. From the wild fig thus brought 

 to the plantations, or from a caprifig which may be 

 planted with the other trees, a species of minute wasp 

 emerges at the right season covered with pollen ; it 

 crawls into the flower-receptacles of the edible fig, 

 fertilises them, and thus produces a crop of seeds, as 

 well as assists in the ripening of the fruit. 



Herodotus knew that an insect passed from the wild 

 fig to the cultivated tree, and Pliny the Elder, in the 

 beginning of our era, described the relation of the insect 

 to the two kinds of fig tree, but he knew nothing of the 

 process of fertilisation, and supposed that the seeds of 

 the wild fig were themselves transformed into insects. 

 For a couple of thousand years the fig tree was cultivated 

 in the Mediterranean regions without anyone troubling 

 to examine the details of the natural processes upon 

 which the production of the seeds depended. This 

 knowledge, combined with persistent endeavour extend- 

 ing over nineteen years, has enabled the United States 

 to transplant to the new world a distinctive product of 

 the old, and to base a new industry upon it. 



