TWENTY-NINTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



207 



packed and shipped, selling readily at higher prices than they had ever 

 brought before, or since. 



There has been a gradual increase in the output of the Adriatic figs 

 since the year 1898, although at no time have the shipments been more 

 than 2,500 tons annually. At least seven-eighths of the Adriatic figs 

 packed have been shipped from Fresno. Strange as it may seem, still 

 it is an actual fact that very few orchardists cure their own crops. 

 Most of the crops are sold on the trees, and in many cases the prospec- 

 tive crops are sold in the winter months before there is any indication 

 of what the crop will be. The Slavonians and Armenians, who are 

 engaged in this line of business, pay so much a tree for the crop, the 

 price being determined by the size of the trees and the quality of the 

 figs from a certain orchard or district, their knowledge of such matters 

 being quite accurate. The handling and curing of the crops are entirely 

 in their hands. 



During these years when the Adriatics were selling at such profitable 

 prices, the only Smyrna fig orchard in California was cultivated and 

 cared for by the writer without bringing any returns. At times the 

 task appeared to be a hopeless one, and the temptation to dig up the 

 orchard (grafting in those years had never _ been satisfactory, very few 

 of the scions growing) was very great. Fully realizing, however, that 

 the success of the undertaking hinged on the fact of establishing the 

 little fig wasp, Blastophaga grossorum, I proceeded from year to year to 

 import the insect from Smyrna and other places, but without success. 

 My failures were largely due to the fact of my not being able to secure 

 the services of a competent man to make shipments of the insects at 

 different seasons of the year to enable me to determine in what stage of 

 their existence they would carry through successfully. Several times I 

 tried to interest Hon. J. Sterling Morton, United States Secretary of 

 Agriculture, in this subject, but all my efforts met with no response, 

 and it was not until 1898, when the California State Board of Trade 

 addressed a letter to Hon. James A. Wilson, United States Secretary of 

 Agriculture, which met with an. immediate response, that active steps 

 were taken to introduce the little wasp which was to play such an 

 important part in the future of the fig industry in the New World. 



The interest manifested in this subject by Mr. W. T. Swingle, Agri- 

 cultural Explorer, and Dr. L. 0. Howard, Chief of the Division of Ento- 

 mology, both of the United States Department of Agriculture, is well 

 known. The following year after the insect had been established, 

 Dr. Howard sent a special agent, Mr. E. A. Schwarz, to make a thorough 

 study of the life history of the little wasp. Mr. Schwarz devoted six 

 months of careful study to the matter, and his investigations were fully 

 set forth in a treatise written by Dr. Howard for the yearbook of the 

 United States Department of Agriculture in 1901. Mr. Swingle has not 



