Core Historical Literature of Agriculture Core Historical Literature of Agriculture Home Search Browse Bookbag Help The fig Table of contents | Add to bookbag First Page Page i New York State College of Agriculture At Cornell University Ithaca, N.Y. Library Front Matter Page ii Ira Judson Condit was born in 1883 at Jersey, Licking County, Ohio. After graduation from the High School at Granville in 1900 he taught in a country school at the age of 16. He received the B.Sc. degree from Ohio State University in 1905 and then spent over a year in the Division of Entomology, United States Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. From 1907 to 1912 he was Instructor in Botany and Horticulture at the California Polytechnic School, San Luis Obispo, where he married Caroline Callender. The following year was spent in graduate work at the University of California. In 1913 he was appointed Instructor and later Assistant Professor in the newly organised Division of Citriculture of the University, where he spec. alized in the study of subtropical fruits and published bulletins on the loquat, persimmon, avocado, carob, and caprifigs and caprification. From 1920 to 1924 he was horticulturist for the California Peach and Fig Growers zvith headquarters at Fresno and became intimately acquainted with t the fig industry and its cultural problems. Following his return to the University of California he was granted the degree of M.S. in 1928 from that institution and the Ph.D. degree from Stanford University in 1932. He has made http://chla.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-i...dd90d19d3aa0fdc33;rgn=main;view=text;idno=3116126 (1 of 335) [1/20/2010 10:35:07 PM] Core Historical Literature of Agriculture morphological studies of the flowers of the common fig and cytological studies of over thirty species of the genus, Ficus, and for many years has investigated the problems of olive culture in California. Since 1935 he has been Associate Professor and Associate Subtropical Horticulturist at the University of California Citrus Experiment Station, Riverside, where his main project has been the study of fig varieties, their nomenclature and climatic adaptation, and development of new varieties by extensive fig breeding. At the invitation of the California Fig Growers he spent six months in 1923 becoming acquainted with the fig industries of Old World districts, particularly Algeria, Italy, Greece, Turkey, France, Spain and Portugal. During sabbatical leave in 1934-35 he was visiting Professor at Lingnan University, Canton, China, and also visited the Philippines, Formosa, Japan, and Hawaii. He is an active member of the following professional societies: A.A.A.S., Amer. Soc. Hort. Sci., Sigma Xi, and Calif. Bot. Society. He is editor of the section Subtropical and Tropical Pomology, for Biological Abstracts. Page iii A NEW SERIES OF PLANT SCIENCE BOOKS edited by Frans Verdoorn Volume XIX The FIG Page iv The central fig tree shows a method of propagation known as marcottage or aerial layering, commonly used in some humid climates. Note bags of moss in which roots are forming, also some roots on severed branches which are ready to plant (from: Versuch der Universal Vermehrung aller Baume by G. A. Agricola, Vol. 1, Regensburg, 1716, courtesy Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University). Page vi First published MCMXLVII By the Chronica Botanica Company of Waltham, Mass., U. S. A. http://chla.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-i...dd90d19d3aa0fdc33;rgn=main;view=text;idno=3116126 (2 of 335) [1/20/2010 10:35:07 PM] Core Historical Literature of Agriculture Copyright, 1947, by the Chronica Botanica Co. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form Authorized Agents: New York, N. Y.: Stechert-Hafner, Inc. 31 East 10th Street. San Francisco, Cal.: J. W. Stacey, Inc. 551 Market Street Ottawa, Ont: Thorburn and Abbott, Ltd., 115, Sparks Street. Mexico, D. F.: Axel Moriel Sucrs., San Juan de Letran 24-116; Ap. 2762. Lima: Libreria Internacional del Peru, Casa Matriz. Boza 879; Casilla 1417. Santiago de Chile: Libreria Zamorano y Caperan, Compania 1015 y 1019; Casilla 362. Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Kosmos, Rua do Rosario, 135-137; Caixa Postal 3481. Sao Paulo: Livraria Ovilizaqao Brasileira, Rua 15 de Novembro, 144. Buenos Aires: Acme Agency, Soc. de Resp. Ltda., Suipacha 58; Casilla de Correo 1136. London, W. 1: Wm. Dawson and Sons, Ltd., Chief Agents for the British Empire Cannon House, Macklin Street. http://chla.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-i...dd90d19d3aa0fdc33;rgn=main;view=text;idno=3116126 (3 of 335) [1/20/2010 10:35:07 PM] Core Historical Literature of Agriculture London, W. C. 1: H. K. Lewis and Co., Ltd., 136, Gower Street. Uppsala: A.-B. Lundequistska Bokhandeln. Groningen: N. V. Erven P. Noordhoff. Chief Agents for Continental Europe. Paris, VI: Librairie H. Le Soudier, 174, Bvd. St. Germain. Torino: Rosenberg & Sellier, Via Andrea Doria 14. Lisbon: Livraria Sa da Costa, 100-102, R. Garrett. Moscow: Mezhdunarodnaja Kniga, Kuznetski Most 18. Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras: Macmillan and Co., Ltd. Johannesburg: Central News Agency, Ltd., Commissioner & Rissik Sts.; P. O. Box 1033. Sydney: Angus and Robertson, Ltd., 89 Castlereagh Street, Box 1516D.D. G.P.O. Melbourne, C. 1: N. H. Seward, Pty., Ltd., 457, Bourke Street. Made and printed in the U. S. A. Page vii FOREWORD I am glad to have the privilege of writing a foreword to Dr. Ira J. Condit^ important work, "The Fig\'\' which gives a highly documented account of this http://chla.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-i...dd90d19d3aa0fdc33;rgn=main;view=text;idno=3116126 (4 of 335) [1/20/2010 10:35:07 PM] Core Historical Literature of Agriculture remarkable fruit and its near relatives. Dr. Condit has been publishing valuable contributions to our knowledge of the jig during the last thirty years. Chronica Botanica deserves great credit for publishing very useful historical and scientific records of plants such, as this monograph. Now that the rapidly augmenting population in most countries has raised the grave problem of the future supply of food for the ever-increasing millions of human beings their energetic editorial and publicational activities should be recognized as a real contribution to the solution of the vital problem of feeding the world. As with the introduction of many new plant industries there was an almost inexplicable lapse of time between the introduction of the first Smyrna fig cuttings into the New World in 1880 and 1882 and the actual production of caprified figs on a commercial scale. Until 1890 no fruit was produced on any of the thousands of flourishing trees and then only a few experimental fruits resulting from slow and difficult hand pollination. Bui another ten years was to elapse before the introduction of the Blastophaga insect. Many claimed that the Turks, not wanting to lose their large export trade of Smyrna figs to this country, had sent cuttings from sterile fig trees. During all this time discussion still raged as to the value of caprification. This was probably the result of the publication in 1892 of a translation of the Italian Professor GasparriniV chapter on caprification in which he vehemently denounced the practice, saying, "Caprification is useless for the setting and ripening of the fruit and this custom, which entails expense and deteriorates the flavor of the fig, ought to be abolished from our agriculture." It is strange that the fig growers of California did not realize that the Mission and White Adriatic figs and many other varieties, were like the Washington Navel oranges of nearby Fresno and Tulare Counties in that they did not need pollination to set fruit. On the other hand the Lob Injir and other Smyrna figs were like the Valencia oranges and needed pollen to set fruit and never produced any figs until they were pollinated artificially on a very small scale in 1890, or on a large scale after 1900 when caprification began in California. I first saw the fig insect and the practice of caprification and talked with Italian fig growers in 1896 when for some months I occupied the Smithsonian Table at the Marine Biological Institute at Naples, Italy. There I met Dr. Paul Mayer, an entomologist who had studied caprification and had published a fifty-page illustrated memoir in Vol. 3 of the Mitteilungen of the Naples Zoological Station in 1882. Traveling there again at my Page viii Condit vni http://chla.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-i...dd90d19d3aa0fdc33;rgn=main;view=text;idno=3116126 (5 of 335) [1/20/2010 10:35:07 PM] Core Historical Literature of Agriculture The Fig own expense in March, 1898,I was given the courtesy of this great Institution. One day while I was busily wrapping in tinfoil caprifigs containing Blastophaga to send to America, Dr. Paul Mayer brought into my room Count Solms-Laubach, a famous German botanist who had published a bulky treatise on the fig some 16 years before. He said at once, "Why do you Americans spend good money to come to Europe to study things already decidedt Gasparrini showed fifty years ago that figs do not need to be caprified to set fruit and that pollination has no beneficial effect. This is merely a peasant superstition. Why did you not study the flora of the Revilla Gigedo Islands and so accomplish something useful and interesting?" I did not even know the location of the Revilla Gigedo Islands {far to west of the State of Jalisco, Mexico) but I was thoroughly convinced of the need for caprification to cause Smyrna figs to set fruit because I knew of the proof published by George C.