BIOLOGICAL STUDIES OF FIGS. 929 



Pollination of San Pedro and Gentile Figs. — Since the 

 MS. of this paper was completed, or almost so, I have 

 been able to successfully experiment with pollination of 

 the second crop of San Pedro and Gentile figs. My ex- 

 periments were made in Kern County, California, on two 

 fig trees, one a San Pedro and the other a Gentile, planted 

 by me some years previously. 



As I have stated, these two fig varieties mature only a 

 first crop under any circumstances, at least no case has 

 come under my observation where a fig of the second 

 crop came to perfect maturity, the crop generally drop- 

 ping as a whole when one-fifth grown. The time for ex- 

 periment was July II. The pollen had been secured 

 from a caprifig tree of the Bulletin variety grown about 

 200 miles away and transported in a glass-stoppered bot- 

 tle. 



The San Pedro tree contained about 420 figs. Thirty- 

 six of these were pollinated with a goose -quill by inject- 

 ing caprifig pollen through the e3^e in liberal quantities, 

 many times more than would have been brought there by 

 inquilines. A few weeks afterwards the majority of the 

 pollinated figs were turning soft, while the non-pollinated 

 figs remained hard, many falling off. By the i6th of 

 August I again visited this tree. Ten mature figs had 

 been taken off. Eight remained on the tree fully ripe 

 and very sweet, but somewhat smaller than the first crop, 

 and six figs were partly mature. All of these figs were 

 among those caprificated or rather pollinated by me and 

 marked. Of all the other, nearly 400 figs, on this tree, 

 which had not been pollinated, not a single one showed 

 any sign of maturity, and later on all these dropped off. 



With the Gentile tree the case was quite similar. This 

 tree contained 86 second crop figs. Of these 19 were 

 pollinated and 10 of these came to full maturit}^ two to 



2b See., Vol. V. ( 60) January 11, 1896. 



