328 Caprification of the Fig. 
calculate definitely upon such rcturns, ior four or five years 
sometimes pass without a satisfactory crop. We have, also, 
instances of “barren fig trees,” which persist in ‘dropping their 
untimely figs,” year after year, during their youth. tow much 
of this is due to variety, and how much to locality, is not def- 
nitely known, but successful truiing has been secured by graft- 
ing over barren trees, using scions irom bearing trees growing 
adjacent to them, 
CAPRIFICATION. 
Caprification consists of suspending the fruit of the wild 
or Capri fig in the branches of the tree of improved variety, that 
the pollen may be carried by an insect from the former to the 
latter. Calilornia has never heen able to produce dried figs 
equal to the fig of commerce or the Smyrna fig. This was, at 
first, thought to be due to lack of the Smyrna variety. After 
painstaking effort this variety was introduced. Trees grew 
readily from the cuttings; fruit appeared upon them and dropped 
before maturity. Doubt then arose as to whether importers 
had not been deceived, and other efforts were made which re- 
sulted in other importations. These also cast to the ground 
their immature figs. Discussion turned. then upon the fact of 
caprification—the necessity of having the fruit of the Capri or 
wild fig adjacent to the fruit of the Smyrna fig so that insects 
from the Capri might visit the fruit of the improved variety and 
pollinate its inclosed flowers, which, appearing upon the inner 
wall of an almost closed cavity, could not be reached by ordi- 
nary visiting insects. The wild trees had already been intro- 
duced and were freely growing near the others, but this fact 
availed nothing—the figs fell just the same from the Smyrna 
trees. In 1890 Mr. George C. Roeding, of Fresno, essayed to 
demonstrate the fact that the lack of the pollination was the 
secret of failure, and he succeeded in introducing the Capri pollen 
into the eye of the Smyrna fig, and secured thereby the retention 
of such pollinated. figs upon ‘the trees, and when ripened and 
dried these had the Smyrna character. The demonstration was 
complete that California could not grow Smyrna figs without 
the pollinating agency found to be essential to success in 
Smyrna, which is a minute wasp called the blastophaga—an in- 
sect so minute that it can make its way through the mesh of ordi- 
nary cheese-cloth and can enter the almost closed eye of the 
young fig—so minute that a magnifying-glass is necessary to 
give one any clear idea of its outline. For years constant effort 
has been made by various parties to secure the introduction of 
this insect. Urgent appeals were made to the United States 
Department of Agriculture, after private undertakings failed, to 
secure the insect alive or otherwise in form for permanent resi- 
