

THE HISTORICAL VIEW. 



Who was the man who first recognized the economic value of the fig (Ficus 

 Carica) in its native habitat, and who first took up a specimen tree from its wild 

 environment and planted it in some sheltered situation along the thermal or foothill 

 regions of Asia Minor or Persia? history does not mention. The records of the 

 remote, as well as of the later period, are indeed sadly forgetful of the achieve- 

 ments man has wrought in the perfection of plants and fruits, calculated to 

 contribute to his comforts and provide him food and shelter. Yet history records 

 the deeds of an Alexander and a Caesar, and the lore of books immortalizes the works 

 of a Plato and an Aristotle. The aphorism of satirical Dean Swift, "He who makes 

 two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before, is more deserving of 

 mankind than the hordes of politicians and literateurs put together," is indeed 

 sadly out of joint both in the past as well as in the present. The spirit of the 

 Anglo-Saxon is to the military rather than to the pastoral. He who introduces 

 and perfects a new fruit of real value is quite as much entitled to the homage of his 

 fellow man as he who conquers in battle, or wins renown in the halls of legislation, 

 or in the arts and sciences. Hence, all honor to the pioneers in fig culture, whether 

 in the valleys of the Orient, on the shores of the Mediterranean, or in the new home 

 of its adoption in Western America. 



The history of Smyrna Fig culture abroad, is shrouded in mystery and uncertainty, 

 though books on this subject, without number, have been published during the past 

 decade, in nearly all civilized languages. These, for the most part, deal with the 

 botany, economic value, caprification, and natural history of the whole genus of Ficus. 

 In view of this fact, their perusal and study is necessarily limited to people of a 

 scientific and technical turn of mind, and does not appeal to the practical man of every 

 day life, who is drawn to the subject on purely commercial lines. It is to this class, 

 that the exploitation of fig culture on this continent and the islands of the Pacific, will 

 command the widest recognition and secure for it the place its importance deserves. 



The species which yields the famous figs of commerce, is botanically Ficus 

 Carica, which under the influence of man has been developed into a large number 

 of commercial sorts, many of which possess qualities of a high order and of value 

 in the trade. It is quite generally admitted by the highest authorities, that the fig 

 is indigenous J;p Asia Minor and Syria, but by dissemination through a long series of 

 years, it is now found in a wild state in most of the countries aligning the Mediterranean 

 region. Reference is frequent in the Bible to the fig, hence its spread even at the 

 dawn of the Christian Era must have been quite general. The Greeks are said to 

 have received it from Caria, hence its name. With them, it was one of the principal 



