THE FIG TREE ] 131 



When this is done the plant is given a gopd dressing of 

 manure, and liberally watered. The plant will react at 

 once to this treatment, starting fresh vegetation and 

 producing another crop of fruits which ripen late in 

 autumn or during winter, if the plant is then placed 

 under glass. 



A very interesting and important cultural operation 

 required by most varieties of the edible fig is the time- 

 honoured practice of caprification. Under ordinary 

 circumstances a considerable proportion of the green 

 fruit, often the great majority, drops off when it reaches 

 the size of a hazelnut, and this loss is greatly reduced 

 and sometimes entirely eliminated by means of caprifi- 

 cation. The operation is simple enough, and consists 

 in hanging the ripe fruit of the caprifig, strung together 

 in twos and threes, to the branches of the edible fig 

 when its fruit has reached the size of a hazelnut, that is 

 when its flowers are blooming. The practice is of 

 immemorial antiquity and probably originated with those 

 consummate agriculturists, the ancient Phoenicians and 

 Carthaginians. From them it passed to the Greeks who 

 owed their progress in agriculture as well as in the arts 

 to those enterprising and highly cultured nations. 

 Theophrastus is the oldest writer who makes reference 

 to caprification, and his work written in accordance with 

 the theories of his age, gives us the first insight into the 

 sexual differences of plants. Pliny the Elder gives an 

 elaborate description of caprification, alludes to the 

 antiquity of its practice, and acknowledges its application 

 in those regions of the Mediterranean basin where the 

 fig tree was cultivated. The practice of caprification 

 continued uninterruptedly down to the present, and 

 notwithstanding its condemnation by several modern 

 writers, who on theoretical grounds, condemned it "as 

 a tribute paid by ignorance to prejudice", without having 

 an adequate knowledge of its theory and still less of its 

 practice, its practical utility is too real and too well 



