SMYRNA FIG CULTURE. | 9 
except in Ficus pseudocarica, which regularly bears pollen in the 
winter-generation caprifigs. These hibernating mammoni figs are 
so similar in form and general appearance to the mamme figs that 
without cutting them open it is difficult to tell them apart. 
To summarize, the necessity of sheltering the fig insect the whole 
year round leads to the curious result that the caprifig trees bear 
through the winter on their bare branches the so-called winter 
generation or mamme caprifigs, from which issue in spring the fig 
insects, which thereupon lay their eggs in the enormously abundant 
spring generation of caprifigs or profichi. These profichi, which 
mature in June, are used to caprify the Smyrna figs, which at this 
season have areata of young fruits just ready for “thie Blastophaga 
‘to enter. The caprifig trees also bear a somewhat scanty crop of 
summer-generation fruit called mammoni, which furnishes a breeding 
place for the fig insect and carries it over from season to season. 
After late summer the fruits on the caprifig tree become irregular, 
and, all sizes of fruits can be found on the tree at the same time; and 
generally the fig insects can be found issuing at any time from Sep- 
tember to November. As winter comes on and the growth of the 
caprifig tree becomes slower, a few tardy fruits set, which hang on 
through the winter, constituting the winter generation or mamme 
crop noted already. ) 
ABILITY OF THE CAPRIFIG TO CARRY THE WINTER CROP. 
Probably more caprifig varieties are now established in California 
‘ than are to be found in any other country in the world, owing in 
- part to the enterprise of the late W. B. West, of Stockton; Mr. Van 
Lennep, of Auburn; George C. Roeding and G. N. Milco, of Fresno; 
Febx Gillett, of Nevada City; and largely to the United States 
Department of Agriculture. Here may be found most of the best 
varieties from the Smyrna district of Asia Minor, many from Greece, 
Italy, and the islands of the Mediterranean, and especially from the 
States of northern Africa, besides a host of seedlings of American 
origin. 
Probably every Smyrna fig grower has observed the difference 
that exists in the ability of different varieties of caprifigs to carry 
through the winter crop. Many kinds never produce a winter crop, 
though they generally yield the spring or profichi crop in great 
abundance. Still others produce so few winter figs that they are of 
little use in perpetuating the Blastophaga. Some fail to bear a 
mammoni (summer) crop, or the figs push at a time that leaves a 
hiatus in the successive generations of the insects. Such trees can 
not produce a mamme crop unless they have the assistance of better 
trees, for it is well known that the mamme figs dry up and fall unless 
oviposited in by insects of the mammonigeneration. It is a curious 
71807°—18—Bull. 732-2 
