34 



fecundation of vegetables; they ascertained that the female date was 

 enabled to set and ripen its fruit, not by the insect, as Herodotus 

 believed, but by the fertilizing powder of the anthers; and, amongst 

 other remarkable circumstances, this also was discovered, that certain 

 animals and vegetables lived under a kind of mutual dependence for the 

 accomplishment of the operation. Thus, for example, it was observed 

 that the male flowers of the gourd abounded in pollen, which is their 

 fertilizing powder. With this pollen bees chiefly form their wax, and 

 the bee flying from flower to flower carries it from the male to the 

 female ower, which eagerly sucks it up, becomes fertile, and grows into 

 the fruit. These facts and other similar ones having been related and 

 proved, it appeared to the learned, and especially to Linnaeus, that they 

 explained the whole secret of caprification. This great botanist well 

 knew that the fruit is the enlarged ovary, and that the fig commonly 

 called a fruit is not the ovary, but a receptacle containing the flowers, 

 and capable of enlarging without the assistance of fecundation. Know- 

 ing, moreover, by the researches of Pontedera, that the domestic fig 

 only contained female flowers, and that the males were in the caprifig, 

 and that in the one, as in the other, the flowers remained inclosed 

 withinside the receptacle, he conceived the beautiful idea that the fecun- 

 dation of the fig took place by a special provision of nature. This con- 

 sisted in the creation in the caprifig of an insect which, for the purposes 

 of support and propagation, was obliged to penetrate into the domestic 

 fig, and carried with it the prolific humors. Thus fertilized the embryo 

 was produced, and the greatest number of the receptacles remained on 

 the trees, and came to maturity. In reply to those who followed the 

 opinion of Camerarius, who said that the seeds of the fig never germi- 

 nated, as well as to those who alleged on the contrary that fig trees 

 could be only raised from the seeds of figs of the Greek Archipelago, or 

 of Italy, with the remark that the statement of Camerarius was correct 

 in regard to seeds produced in Germany, France, or England, where, 

 there being no caprifig, the figs remained necessarily sterile, whilst, on 

 the contrary, in Greece and Italy, where the caprifig existed, the fig 

 seeds became fertile, either naturally or artificially, by means of caprifi- 

 cation, this explanation appeared so just and natural that it was gen- 

 erally adopted. 



2. Concise Exposition of the Theory of Cavolini. Towards the close of 

 the last century, Cavolini, who was in natural sciences the pride and 

 ornament, not only of Naples, but even of the whole of Italy, sent to 

 press a learned treatise on the present subject. He first describes the 

 caprifig and the fig; then observes that they are but individuals of one 

 species, the caprifig being androgynous and the fig the female plant; 

 and he proceeds to endeavor to prove the necessity of caprification. 

 The fig, he says, is a receptacle, or " a portion of the branch prolonged 

 for the purpose of fructification, and not a pericarp, which is the external 

 covering of the seed. The receptacle can support itself and attain its 

 perfection without fecundation; but not so the pericarp, on account of 

 its adherence to the seed by means of its vessels." Nevertheless, he 

 afterwards declares that this theory is not in all cases confirmed by fact, 

 alleging that the receptacle of the strawberry, of the mulberry, of the 

 blackberry, and of other plants, does not grow or become succulent till 

 after the fecundation of the pistil. And from these data he argues, as 

 to the mode in which caprification works, as follows: That which is 



