ix STORY OF THE SMYRNA FIG 107 



But before going on to this, something else may 

 be said. There are certainly people who will say, 

 What greedy people the Americans must be to take 

 so much trouble over figs and dates ! They may 

 be very important to the Arabs in the Desert of 

 Sahara, but what do they matter in America where 

 there are plenty of other fruits ? The only answer 

 we can make to that objection is, that if there had 

 not always been on the eartli people who were 

 determined not to be beaten, even in trifles, who 

 would go through with a thing because they had 

 begun it, we should all have starved long ago, or 

 have been reduced like the poor Australians to 

 scratching a few miserable roots out of the soil. 

 Civilised man has prospered, has become civilised, 

 just because he has been determined to go through 

 with things, to find out why they were failures, 

 even if he could not always make them a success. 



Now let us go back to the fig-wasp. What was 

 found out was this there are three crops of wild 

 figs : a spring crop, a summer crop, and an autumn 

 crop, which hangs on the trees till spring. The 

 little fig-wasp passes the winter in the autumn 

 caprifigs ; but when spring comes it has exhausted 

 the food in these, becomes restless, and, leaving the 

 withering fig, emerges into the air. 



By this time the plant is beginning to produce 

 its spring crop of caprifigs. These the wasps enter, 



