ON TROPICAL FRUITS 
Japanese races are incomparably superior to the 
American—have such qualities as furnish a se- 
cure foundation on which to develop a really 
notable orchard fruit. 
Fig AND MULBERRY 
Another experiment that I have tried, as yet 
unsuccessfully, with sub-tropical fruits, is the 
hybridization of the fig and the mulberry. 
The fig, as is well known, grows abundantly in 
California. Nearly every one has learned that for 
many years after it was introduced, the fig was a 
very poor bearer, blossoming abundantly but fail- 
ing to ripen satisfactory fruit. The trouble, as was 
presently discovered, was that the peculiar minute 
species of wasp which is the sole bearer of pollen 
from the male or so-called Capri fig to the pistillate 
flowers, was not found in California. So soon as 
this insect was imported from Italy, figs of good 
quality were borne in abundance by hitherto 
barren trees. 
The fig has been under cultivation perhaps as 
long as any other fruit, and it is exceedingly vari- 
able when grown from seed. 
I have grown seedlings in abundance, but 99 
out of 100 produce worthless fruit. 
You plant seeds of the white fig and you are 
quite as likely to get black or brown figs as white 
ones. 
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