SMYRNA FIG CULTURE. 9 



except in Ficus pseudocarica, which regularly bears pollen in the 

 winter-generation caprifigs. These hibernating mammoni figs are 

 so similar in form and general appearance to the mamme figs that 

 without cutting them open it is difficult to tell them apart. 



To summarize, the necessity of sheltering the fig insect the whole 

 year round leads to the curious result that the caprifig trees bear 

 through the winter on their bare branches the so-called winter 

 generation or mamme caprifigs, from which issue in spring the fig 

 insects, which thereupon lay their eggs in the enormously abundant 

 spring generation of caprifigs or profichi. These profichi, which 

 mature in June, are used to caprify the Smyrna figs, which at this 

 season have myriads of young fruits just ready for the Blastophaga 

 to enter. The caprifig trees also bear a somewhat scanty crop of 

 summer-generation fruit called mammoni, which furnishes a breeding 

 place for the fig insect and carries it over from season to season. 



After late summer the fruits on the caprifig tree become irregular, 

 and all sizes of fruits can be found on the tree at the same time; and 

 generally the fig insects can be found issuing at any time from Sep- 

 tember to November. As winter comes on and the growth of the 

 caprifig tree becomes slower, a few tardy fruits set, which hang on 

 through the winter, constituting the winter generation or mamme 

 crop noted already. 



ABILITY OF THE CAPRIFIG TO CARRY THE WINTER CROP. 



Probably more caprifig varieties are now established in California 

 than are to be found in any other country in the world, owing in 

 part to the enterprise of the late W. B. West, of Stockton; Mr. Van 

 Lennep, of Auburn; George C. Roeding.and G. N. Milco, of Fresno; 

 Felix Gillett, of Nevada City; and largely to the United States 

 Department of Agriculture. Here may be found most of the best 

 varieties from the Smyrna district of Asia Minor, many from Greece, 

 Italy, and the islands of the Mediterranean, and especially from the 

 States of northern Africa, besides a host of seedlings of American 

 origin. 



Probably every Smyrna fig grower has observed the difference 

 that exists in the ability of different varieties of caprifigs to carry 

 through the winter crop. Many kinds never produce a winter crop, 

 though they generally yield the spring or profichi crop in great 

 abundance. Still others produce so few winter figs that they are of 

 little use in perpetuating the Blastophaga. Some fail to bear a 

 mammoni (summer) crop, or the figs push at a time that leaves a 

 hiatus in the successive generations of the insects. Such trees can 

 not produce a mamme crop unless they have the assistance of better 

 trees, for it is well known that the mamme figs dry up and fall unless 

 oviposited in by insects of the mammoni generation. It is a curious 

 71807°— 18— Bull. 732 2 



