SMYRNA FIG CULTURE. 17 
It is well known that the flowers of the fig are inside the receptacle 
‘which becomes the fruit. Caprifig trees look exactly like ordinary 
fig trees and bear fruits which look like figs, the only difference being 
that instead of producing seeds the caprifigs are fitted with small 
galls just about the size of seeds, in which the fig insect develops. 
The caprifig differs from the Smyrna and other female figs in having 
a cluster of male or staminate flowers just within the eye. As the 
Smyrna, unlike common fig varieties, can not reach maturity unless 
the flowers are supplied with pollen and the fig can not pollinate 
itself, dependence must be had on some outside agency. This agency 
is the fig insect (Blastophaga psenes). The spring (profichi) crop of the 
capri or male tree is used for this purpose. In California and other 
Southwestern States the insects begin to issue in the warm valley 
from the 10th to the 20th of June and continue often until wellinto July. 
In leaving the fig the female insect passes through the zone of male 
flowers, thereby dusting herself all over with the fertilizing pollen, 
which she then carries to the young fruits of the Smyrna fig. The 
fig insect can live only a few hours outside of the caprifig. In fact, 
only a portion of the male insects as a rule leave the caprifig at all, 
and the females leave only to deposit eggs for the next generation. 
In other words, the fig insect is restricted absolutely to the caprifig 
and can breed nowhere else. This means that the caprifig tree must 
furnish a succession of generations of fig fruits in which the fig insect 
can multiply; that is, as one crop of caprifigs ripens the next crop 
must be ready to receive the insect. This proper adjustment of 
crops does occur in some few caprifig varieties, but in many others the 
adjustment is not so close, as explained elsewhere. 
It only remains to state that the fig insect is unable to breed in the 
Smyrna fig itself. The fig insect merely carries pollen from the 
caprifig fruit and is not able to lay her eggs in the minute flowers 
which line the Smyrna fig fruit, because the styles of these flowers 
are too long to permit the egg to be placed properly. 
Briefly, then, caprification consists in suspending in the Smyrna 
fig tree in June a few chaplets or baskets of caprifig fruits of the 
spring generation or profichi fruits of the caprifig tree which contain 
myriads of minute fig insects (Blastophaga psenes). The minute 
winged female insect in issuing from these caprifig fruits becomes _ 
dusted with pollen, which she carries into the young and receptive 
fruits of the Smyrna fig. Once inside the Smyrna fig fruit, the female 
insect wanders around trying to find asuitable flower for oviposition. 
All she accomplishes is to dust thoroughly the stigmas of the fig 
flowers with pollen, thereby insuring the setting and ripening of the 
fruit, but she does not succeed in ovipositing in the Smyrna fruit. 
No other horticultural industry is so intimately tied up with a 
specific insect as is Smyrna fig culture, which is, indeed, absolutely 
mpossible without the beneficent help of this minute creature. 
71807°—18—Bull. 732 3 
