SMYRNA FIG CULTURE. ai 
CAPRIFIG PLANTATIONS. 
‘As the caprifig crop occasionally suffers from frost in the flat 
regions of the great valley, it is suggested that the fig growers of a 
locality combine and plant a caprifig orchard of a few acres in some 
frost-free foothill region. In this way the cooperators would insure 
themselves a steady supply of caprifigs at little cost. 
All Smyrna fig growers appreciate the fact that there would be con- 
siderable advantage if caprifigs containing the insect could be had 
for a period of a month or six weeks, thereby insuring the pollinizing 
of more figs and an increase in the crops. With our present varieties 
of caprifig trees the caprifying season covers a period of only about 
three weeks. The only way by which this period can be extended with 
capri varieties now cultivated seems to be by planting the capri trees 
in cool localities where the proximity of the sea or other influences 
retard the ripening of the figs and the development of the Blastophaga. 
In such localities as Loomis, Fresno, Indio, and Mecca, Cal., and 
Phoenix, Ariz., the insects from the profichi crop begin to issue from 
about the 10th to the 20th of June, while in localities within the influ- 
ence of the ocean breezes, such as the cooler portions of Sacramento and 
San Joaquin Counties, the period of issue is a week or ten days later, 
and at Niles, Alameda County, Cal., on the eastern shore of San 
Francisco Bay, the time of issue is as late as July 25 or the begin- 
ning of August. A cooperative caprifig orchard could be so located 
as to supply the Smyrna fig growers with pollinizing material for the 
latest figs that could ripen before the advent of the fall rains.’ 
THE SEEDLING FIG ORCHARD AT LOOMIS, CAL. 
Back in 1886, while a spirited discussion regarding the necessities of 
_caprification was going on in California, E. W. Maslin, then of Loomis, 
Cal., sent to.H. K. Thurber, a leading importing merchant of New 
York City, for a box of the finest imported Smyrna figs. The seeds 
_ of these figs were planted by the gardener at the State Capitol, Sac- 
ramento. The resulting seedlings were planted by Mr. Maslin on his 
ranch at Loomis in 1887. These trees grew thriftily and in the 
course of three or four years began to set fruit, nearly all of which 
failed to mature for lack of pollination, the fertilizing insect, Blas- 
tophaga, not then having been introduced into that part of the State. 
The Blastophaga were first colonized on George C. Roeding’s trees 
at Fresno, and in the following year, 1901, they were established in 
the Maslin orchard, at Loomis, where the trees matured fruit for the 
first time. The fruiting of the trees demonstrated that about half of 
them were caprifigs and the other half of the female or edible type. 
This result was naturally to be expected, as the Smyrna fig is the 
female form of a dicecious species. 
1 This would be a desirable undertaking for an association of fig growers, such as was formed at the Fig 
Institute at Fresno, Cal., January 4 and 5, 1918. 
