(1891) of "Insect Life' 7 he says that efforts would be made to introduce 

 the insect into our State, but as to what efforts were made nothing has 

 been heard. I should not be surprised in the least if in some coming 

 number of some publication, he broaches the claim that the credit of 

 introduction belongs to him, as scarcely a bug has been introduced or 

 discovered of which he has not claimed first credit, and, as one of our 

 Congressmen expressed it to the members of the State Board of Horti- 

 culture, " He not only wanted to make me believe that he discovered 

 the bug, but had also produced it." "What egotism! how selfish, oh 

 man !" Officers of this kind should lay aside all ambition for notoriety 

 at the expense of the public, and when their deeds become known the 

 people will show them their gratefulness. But a man who has such a 

 disregard for the truth cannot but be held in contempt, and if they 

 could only see their vanity, how different things might be, and the Gov- 

 ernment would not be taxed with the burden of printing and circulat- 

 ing their vanities (an insult to science), and, furthermore, of employing 

 an editor to prevent one man from appropriating the credit due to others; 

 and why this state of things should be allowed to continue the public 

 ought to know. 



As to the manner of the introduction of the Blastophaga, I cannot do 

 better than to give Mr. Shinn's own account: " We wrote to some friends 

 that were known to us in Smyrna; or rather, some missionaries were 

 stopping at my house, and seeing that my fig did not bear, and that I 

 was getting uneasy about it, one of the ladies, my wife's sister, said she 

 knew a lady from Syracuse, New York, who was then in Smyrna, and 

 if she would write to her she would fix up a few of the fig cuttings and 

 send them. The lady sent for them, and instead of sending a half 

 dozen cuttings, sent a whole box of cuttings, on which I paid about 

 $100. After I received this box, here comes another little box and a 

 letter, saying: 'The figs must be caprified; if not you will get no figs. 

 I send you a little box of figs that are full of the Blastophaga, and hope 

 you can do well with them. 7 The moment we got them my son went 

 out to the caprifig tree, opened the box and set it out there. Some of 

 the insects were dead and some were alive. I saw Mr. Eisen the next 

 day, and told him about the Blastophaga and the figs. He and Mr. 

 Maslin came to my place the Sunday following, July 26th. We exam- 

 ined and found some live insects, but most of them were dead. The 

 Smyrna figs that were caprified, that is, that had the pollen put in arti- 

 ficially, came to perfection, but no others did. Two crops have all gone 

 to the ground and are now on the ground, except about ten figs. The 

 pollen that was injected into the figs was from the caprifigs grown on my 

 place at Niles. There are two varieties of the Smyrna fig. One has a 

 three-lobed leaf, and the figs are small and elongated. The other is a 

 five-lobed leaf, and the figs are flat and roundish." 



The ground for argument by those who believe in caprification, has 

 been that no fertile seeds had been found in any California-grown fig. 

 Also, that all figs, and especially the Smyrna, only contain female flow- 

 ers; and the fact of fruit of trees imported from Smyrna not coming to 

 perfection, gave them stronger grounds for such belief; that is, the pol- 

 len of the male, or caprifig, had to come in contact with the flowers of 

 the female fig to produce fruit. Also, that the reason for not having 

 found kernels in the seeds of California-grown figs was attributed to the 

 lack of the pollen fertilization. 



