84 PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-SIXTH FRUIT-GROWERS * CONVENTION. 



supplied when requested. Any one desiring either the fruit or the cut- 

 tings has only to send his name to the writers at 1813 Pierce street, 

 San Francisco, and he will receive blank applications and circulars 

 giving the conditions of the distribution. Last winter nearly ten thou- 

 sand cuttings and seedling trees and last spring several hundred boxes 

 of mamme and profichi caprifigs were distributed. This winter and 

 next spring further distributions of the most desirable kinds will be 

 made. 



PLANTING CAPRI TREES. 



Every grower should aim to have an independent supply of fertilizing 

 material of his own. This can be done only by planting a number of 

 varieties of the best capri trees proportionate to the number of Smyrna 

 trees in his orchard. If he has old trees of any variety he deems unde- 

 sirable for any cause, let him insert capri grafts of the best kinds and 

 by this means supply himself much sooner than by waiting for young 

 trees to come into bearing. Smyrna trees will show some fruit as early 

 as two and three years, and which, if caprified, will come to perfection. 

 It is recommended that capri trees at the rate of two to each acre of 

 Smyrna trees be planted by themselves in one corner of the orchard, or 

 if there is a knoll or spot reasonably free from frost, put them there. 

 They may be planted as near as 20 feet apart and if sheltered by a 

 wind-break to keep off cold winter winds, all the better. A number of 

 growers may combine and plant a tract to capri trees in a sheltered 

 spot even at some distance from their orchards, if thereby they can 

 secure protection from the hardest frosts and also obtain earlier profichi 

 caprifigs in readiness for the first Smyrna figs that reach a receptive 

 condition. There is no danger of an oversupply of caprifigs. for there 

 will always be a demand for the surplus from growers who have from 

 some cause an inadequate supply. In the fig districts of Asia Minor, 

 where fig growing has been a great industry for thousands of years, 

 caprifigs are a regular article of trade in the markets. The reason for 

 planting capri trees apart from Smyrna trees is that they more effect- 

 ually fertilize each other and that a more even distribution of the capri- 

 figs may be made by hand among the Smyrna trees. The question is 

 often asked: Why not plant the capris among the Smyrna trees and 

 let nature take her course ? In Asia Minor it is firmly believed that 

 overpollination is the cause of the splitting of figs. The writers do not 

 believe that this is the sole cause, if a cause at all of the trouble, for 

 reasons that will be given further along. It is not desirable that more 

 than one or two blastophagas should enter each Smyrna fig. At Loomis. 

 where at times the insects are seen hovering over the trees like swarms 

 of gnats, it is not unusual for a dozen to enter a single fig. One of the 

 writers has counted as many as twenty-five wasps in one fig and another 

 struggling mass of fifteen at the entrance trying to get in. Capri trees 

 planted at considerable distances from each other in the orchard receive 

 very little help from other capri trees in carrying the insect from crop 

 to crop, and when the tree is of a variety that carries no mamme crop 

 its profichi crop is likely to be a failure. It may be noted that the 

 more accessible the figs to be caprified are to the blastophaga. the more 

 of them will be entered. In some instances we know that the wasp has 

 fertilized trees some miles away, perhaps carried by the wind, but not 

 in sufficient numbers to produce a crop. 



