106 TILLEES OF THE GROUND CHAP. 



thus save all the trouble. The difficulty was to get 

 the wasp. It lives in the caprifigs, but there were, 

 of course, no caprifigs on the cuttings of capri- 

 plants brought over from Europe, so how was the 

 wasp to be got ? How was the ' third step to be 

 taken ? 



Well, a great many ways were tried ; it would 

 take too long to tell about them all, but' it became 



FIG. 27. Capriticated Figs, whole and cut in half to show 

 Flowers within. 



clear that success was impossible until the life- 

 history of the wasp was understood thoroughly. 

 Some work had been done already on this question in 

 Europe, some still remained to be done, and further, 

 the peo le who were actually working at the subject 

 in California had not only to learn what had been 

 done in Europe, but had also to find out how the 

 conditions in California differed from those in 

 Europe. We may state very shortly what they 

 learned, and show how it helped them to final 

 success. 



