SMYRNA FIG CULTURE. 17 



It is well known that the flowers of the fig are inside the receptacle 

 which becomes the fruit. Caprifig trees look exactly like ordinary 

 fig trees and bear fruits which look like figs, the only difference being 

 that instead of producing seeds the caprifigs are fitted with small 

 galls just about the size of seeds, in which the fig insect develops. 

 The caprifig differs from the Smyrna and other female figs in having 

 a cluster of male or staminate flowers just within the eye. As the 

 Smyrna, unlike common fig varieties, can not reach maturity unless 

 the flowers are supplied with pollen and the fig can not pollinate 

 itself, dependence must be had on some outside agency. This agency 

 is the fig insect (Blastophaga psenes) . The spring (profichi) crop of the 

 capri or male tree is used for this purpose. In California and other 

 Southwestern States the insects begin to issue in the warm valley 

 from the 10th to the 20th of June and continue of ten until well into July. 



In leaving the fig the female insect passes through the zone of male 

 flowers, thereby dusting herself all over with the fertilizing pollen, 

 which she then carries to the young fruits of the Smyrna fig. The 

 fig insect can five only a few hours outside of the caprifig. In fact, 

 only a portion of the male insects as a rule leave the caprifig at all, 

 and the females leave only to deposit eggs for the next generation. 

 In other words, the fig insect is restricted absolutely to the caprifig 

 and can breed nowhere else. This means that the caprifig tree must 

 furnish a succession of generations of fig fruits in which the fig insect 

 can multiply; that is, as one crop of caprifigs ripens the next crop 

 must be ready to receive the insect. This proper adjustment of 

 crops does occur in some few caprifig varieties, but in many others the 

 adjustment is not so close, as explained elsewhere. 



It only remains to state that the fig insect is unable to breed in the 

 Smyrna fig itself. The fig insect merely carries pollen from the 

 caprifig fruit and is not able to lay her eggs in the minute flowers 

 which line the Smyrna fig fruit, because the styles of these flowers 

 are too long to permit the egg to be placed properly. 



Briefly, then, caprification consists in suspending in the Smyrna 

 fig tree in June a few chaplets or baskets of caprifig fruits of the 

 spring generation or profichi fruits of the caprifig tree which contain 

 myriads of minute fig insects (Blastophaga psenes). The minute 

 winged female insect in issuing from these caprifig fruits becomes 

 dusted with pollen, which she carries into the young and receptive 

 fruits of the Smyrna fig. Once inside the Smyrna fig fruit, the female 

 insect wanders around trying to find a suitable flower for oviposition. 

 All she accomplishes is to dust thoroughly the stigmas of the fig 

 flowers with pollen, thereby insuring the setting and ripening of the 

 fruit, but she does not succeed in ovipositing in the Smyrna fruit. 



No other horticultural industry is so intimately tied up with a 

 specific insect as is Smyrna fig culture, which is, indeed, absolutely 

 impossible without the beneficent help of this minute creature, 

 71807°— 18— Bull. 732 3 



