44: PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-THIRD FRUIT-GROWERS 3 CONVENTION. 



the fig. To his query for information, I replied that there was nothing 

 new. In the course of our conversation he wanted to know if I 

 had discovered any method of eradicating the fig insect. I looked at 

 him for a moment, thinking he must be one of Jeffrey's Los Angeles 

 bug inspectors who are constantly on the warpath for insectivorous 

 gore, and then catching my breath I blurted out, * ' Jehosaphat, man! 

 Eradicate it! Bless your benighted soul, I have for fifteen years 

 plowed through the Agricultural Department at Washington and har- 

 rowed every fruit-growers' convention in California for an equal length 

 of time, in an endeavor to import the bug and get it to 'bugging' in my 

 fig orchard." The story, of course, went the rounds of the press, and 

 as for the boy, I believe he was last heard of delivering a lecture on 

 i 1 If bugs were as big as elephants, what would happen to the quarantine 

 office at San Francisco?" 



However, I guess I am an old-timer. Well do I remember my first 

 paper on the Smyrna fig, read in Marysville before the Convention of 

 1891. It was at a time when the whole subject of caprification was 

 regarded as a myth, and its followers (and there were but few) as self- 

 illusionized cranks. My paper was prepared with the utmost care, 

 my experimental work being carefully detailed, hence I expected it to 

 be received in a manner befitting its importance. How rudely my air 

 castle was shattered ! When the paper was called for, I happened to 

 be out, and as it was all Greek to the man who read it, and being rather 

 long anyway, I had the satisfaction of listening to remarks like these: 

 ' ' I wonder if he will ever get tired V " Who is that fellow any way ? ' ' 

 * 1 Say, isn 't he long-winded ¥ " 1 1 Oh, cut it short. ' ' The agony over with, 

 I silently said ' ' Amen. ' ' Let me tell you, my friends, if you ever get a 

 bee in your bonnet that you are a great writer and are on the road to 

 fame, just let some one else read your essay and seat yourself among 

 people who do not know you and listen to their criticisms. You will say, 

 "Me for the soil; I'll leave writing to men and women who farm on 

 paper with lead pencils." 



My paper was followed by one written by the late B. M. Lelong, 

 then Secretary of the State Board of Horticulture, in which the whole 

 subject of caprification was held up to ridicule. In the annual report 

 of the same year, the so-called male and female Blastophaga were 

 illustrated. The male happened to be the female, and the female shown 

 was in reality the parasite Philitrypesis, which fortunately for us 

 failed to become established when the fig wasp was introduced. Prof. 

 C. V. Riley, then Chief of the Division of Entomology of the U. S. 

 Department of Agriculture, and who was enthusiastic in his belief 

 in the ultimate success of Smyrna fig culture in California, severely 

 criticised Mr. Lelong later, for his lack of knowledge on this subject. 



I do not wish to burden you with all the details relative to the final 



