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And since caprification is in fact a marriage of the male fig-tree with the female fig-tree, Mr. Paton further supposes that the loves of the trees may, on the same principle of imitative magic, have been simulated by a mock or even a real marriage between the two human victims, one of whom appears sometimes to have been a woman.
Is not the honey-dew produced by the puncture of insects? will not wounding the branch of a pear-tree, which is too vigorous, prevent the blossoms from falling off; as from some fig-trees the fruit is said to fall off unless they are wounded by caprification? This description alludes to the cave of Fingal in the island of Staffa.
From all these circumstances I should conjecture, that those female fig-flowers, which are closed on all sides in the fruit or receptacle without any male ones, are monsters, which have been propagated for their fruit, like barberries, and grapes without seeds in them; and that the Caprification is either an ancient process of imaginary use, and blindly followed in some countries, or that it may contribute to ripen the fig by decreasing its vigour, like cutting off a circle of the bark from the branch of a pear-tree.
He does what has been done since Aristotle, Theophrastus and Pliny, all of whom insist on "caprification" as essential to a large crop of figs adapted to drying.
See Browne, The Trees of America, p. 475, and on caprification in Kabylia, N. Bibesco, Les Kabyles du Djardjura, in Revue des Deux Mondes for April 1st, 1805, p. 580; also, Aus der Natur, vol. xxx., p. 684, and Phipson, Utilization of Minute Life, p. 50. In some parts of Sicily, sprigs of mint, mentha pulegium, are used instead of branches of the wild for caprification.
He points out that the process of caprification, as it is called, that is, the artificial fertilisation of the cultivated fig-trees by hanging strings of wild figs among the boughs, takes place in Greece and Asia Minor in June about a month after the date of the Thargelia, and he suggests that the hanging of the black and white figs round the necks of the two human victims, one of whom represented the men and the other the women, may have been a direct imitation of the process of caprification designed, on the principle of imitative magic, to assist the fertilisation of the fig-trees.
The comparison of the fertilization of the date palm to the use of the wild fig refers to the practice of Caprification. Theophrastus tells us that there are certain trees, the fig among them, which are apt to shed their fruit prematurely. To remedy this 'the device adopted is caprification. Historia plantarum, ii. 8, i. Ibid. ii. 8, ii. Historia plantarum, ii. 8, iv.
Muschus corallinus vegetates below the snow, where the heat is always about 40. Quick growth of vegetables in northern latitudes after the solution of the snows explained The Rail sleeps in the snow Conserva ægagropila rolls about the bottom of lakes Lycoperdon tuber, truffle, requires no light Account of caprification
Some varieties of figs do not need caprification, but they are said to be unsuitable for drying or shipment. The Italian practice of touching the eye of each fig, while yet on the tree, with a drop of olive oil seems opposed to the African plan; since the oil would certainly exclude the insect.
"Of course there are other kinds," he said, "but I don't remember them just now." I enquired into the mysteries of caprification, and learned that artificial ripening by means of a drop of oil is practised with some of them, chiefly the santillo, vollombola, pascarello and natalino.
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