462 [Assembly 



Pliny has furnished us with a description of twenty-nine sorts. He 

 says, " figs are restorative, and the best food that can be taken by 

 those who are brought low by long sickness, and are on the recove- 

 ry." He adds, " that figs increase the strength of young people, 

 preserve the elderly in better health, and make them look younger, 

 and with fewer wrinkles." 



The process of caprijlcation, which has been used from time im- 

 memorial, in the Levant, is described by Theophrastus, Plutarch, 

 Pliny, and other authors of antiquity, and more recently by Tourne- 

 fort; and though it is laughed at by many of the French physiolo- 

 gists of the present day, it is thought by many that it must be of 

 some important use. We think it too curious a circumstance, how- 

 ever, in a notice of this species, to be omitted, as it furnishes a con- 

 vincing proof of the reality of the sexes of plants. The operation 

 consists in inducing a certain species of insect of the gnat kind, 

 (Cynips,) which abounds on the wild fig, (Caprificus,) to enter the 

 fruit of the cultivated varieties, for the purpose of puncturing its 

 pericarp, in order to deposit its eggs, and thereby hasten its maturi- 

 ty. By this means the fertile flowers in the interior of the fruit be- 

 come fecundated by the farina of barren ones near the orifice; but, 

 without this operation, though the fruit may ripen, but few effective 

 seeds are produced. It is alleged by Bosc, that there is no other 

 object in this practice than that of hastening the maturity of the 

 crop; but others are of opinion, that, by insuring the fecundation of 

 the stigma, it tends to increase the size of the fruit, and by filling it 

 with mature seeds to render it more nourishing; as appears to be 

 the case with the Osage orange. * 



