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some other countries caprification was not known, it was because, for 

 the above reasons, the figs in those countries set and ripened naturally; 

 and Pliny, speaking of this subject, says that the caprifig is of a wild 

 nature, and does not ripen its fruit, but that it imparts to the fig that 

 virtue which it does not itself possess, for such is the course of nature, 

 that even from putrefaction something should be generated. It pro- 

 duces midges, which, deprived of any nourishment from their own 

 parent, fly to the allied fig, and by continual biting at the mouth enlarge 

 it, and, penetrating within, facilitate the admission of light and fertiliz- 

 ing air (aura cereals), thus transforming the milky humor into a sweet 

 honeyed juice. On this account the caprifig should be planted near the 

 fig, and on that side from whence the wind might carry the fertilizing 

 breath. Now, this description is but little more than a copy of what 

 Theophrastus had written so long before. These were the opinions of 

 the learned as well as the usages of the country in the times of Herod- 

 otus, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Dioscorides, and Pliny; but however 

 ancient was the practice in Greece, it remained there; for there is no 

 tradition of its having been introduced into Syria or Palestine; and 

 Pliny remarks that even at his time it was only in use in the islands of 

 the Archipelago. It may, therefore, be affirmed with tolerable cer- 

 tainty that it was only brought from thence into our country (Italy), 

 although, owing to the long rule of barbarians, it is impossible to fix 

 the period of its introduction with any degree of probability. 



After the revival of science, Csesalpinius, about the year 1583, dis- 

 covered the sexual organs in flowering plants, and thus the conjectures 

 of the ancients became a certainty. Nevertheless, the opinions on the 

 effects of caprification did not change in the least, and none of the 

 botanists or agriculturists of the time, who treated of the fig, differed 

 in this respect from Theophrastus, as may be seen in the works of 

 Bauhin, who lived many years after Csesalpinius. In the beginning of 

 the last century, Tournefort, traveling through Greece, endeavored to 

 ascertain the details and the effects of caprification, and whatever he 

 saw and noted down he afterwards published. He follows the opinion 

 of the Greeks with regard to the manner in which the effects may be 

 produced, saying that the caprifig produces three kinds of receptacles 

 (as we have elsewhere explained in detail) and three generations of the 

 fly in the course of the year; that there are eatable figs which require 

 the assistance of the caprifig to set; that the virtue of caprification 

 consists in the bite of the insect, which, by enabling the superfluous 

 milky juice to escape, causes the fig to set and ripen, and perhaps also 

 some liquid issuing from the fly itself produces the saccharine fermenta- 

 tion by combination with the juice of the fig. Pontedera afterwards, 

 in making known jthe structure of the flowers, as well of the caprifig as 

 of the fig, states his belief that the fly acts upon the latter by giving 

 admission into it to light and air. All of which statements differ in 

 little or nothing from the opinions of the Greeks. 



Meanwhile the discovery of Csesalpinius, in the commencement of 

 the preceding century, had more than ever attracted the attention of 

 the learned, many of whom admitted the necessity of sexes for the 

 fecundation of fruits, and especially for the purpose of obtaining fertile 

 seeds, yet there were not wanting those who contradicted it, and amongst 

 other grounds adduced the fig as ripening its fruit without fecundation. 

 But the most sensible observers multiplied the facts relating to the 



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