2 BULLETIN 732, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
whereas there is a good profit in growing such figs for one-half that 
price. When American-grown Smyrna figs can be put on the mar- 
ket at 15 cents a pound retail, the consumption will be greatly 
increased. The field will therefore be a promising one for many 
years to come. 
The pollination of Smyrna fig flowers by the fig insect Blastophaga 
psenes is one of the most obscure and complicated processes known to 
botanists. Caprification was little understood and even considered 
unnecessary by most of the leading botanists and horticulturists 
of Europe almost up to the beginning of the present century. They 
believed it to be the result of ignorant superstition on, the part of | 
the inhabitants of Asia Minor. They did not believe that the fig 
and caprifig were the female and male forms of a single diccious 
species, but persisted in classifymg’ them as two separate species. 
This belief was generally adhered to until the indispensable neces- 
sity of caprification was demonstrated in 1885 by Dr. Gustay Eisen, 
of Fresno, Cal. (8)... Therefore, it is not strange that the operation 
was little known and appreciated even by people familiar with the 
growth of common figs. 
ORIGIN OF SMYRNA FIG CULTURE. 
The fig family (Moracez) is one of the largest in the vegetable 
world. Botanists have identified and cescribed more than 600 
species, mostly tropical evergreens, frequently of gigantic size, often 
climbers or epiphytic. Very few of the species produce edible fruits, 
but many yield other useful products. One of them, Ficus elastica,is 
an important rubber producer. 
All of the leading cultivated figs belong to the species Ficus carica. 
Two or three other species producing edible fruits may be mentioned 
here, but they are of little importance. Among them is the Ficus 
sycomorus of Egypt, the fruit of which is consumed by the natives 
of that country. Another, Ficus roxburghw, native to the lower 
slopes of the Himalaya Mountains in northern India, produces a fruit 
of very large size, in massive clusters, but of not very high quality. 
Ficus pseudocarica of northeastern Africa (the Italian colony of 
Eritrea and Abyssinia) produces a small, dark-colored, sweet, quite 
palatable fruit, the capri form of which is receiving considerable atten- 
tion in California. 
The original home of the cultivated fig (Ficus carica) conforms 
closely to that of the olive. Alphonse de Candolle (2) sums up the 
subject in a few words, as follows: “The result of our inquiry shows, 
then, that the prehistoric area of the fig covered the middle and 
southern parts of the Mediterranean Basin, from Syria to the Ca- 
) 
naries.’’ The fig has been cultivated in these regions from the earliest 
1The serial numbers in parentheses refer to the ‘‘ Bibliography,’’ pp. 41-43. 
«oe Ma 4a 
