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92.02.00c

Preferred Citation:

Gustav Eisen to Ferdinand von Mueller, 1892-02 [92.02.00c]. R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora, J.H. Voigt and Monika Wells (eds), Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, <https://vmcp.rbg.vic.gov.au/id//letters/1890-6/1892/92-02-00c-final.odt>, accessed June 15, 2026

1
Letter not found. The text given here is from the article 'Caprification of figs', Australasian , 12 March 1892, p. 485. The extract is introduced by:
At the Hobart meeting of the Australian Association for the Advancement of Science, Baron von Mueller referred to the necessity of reconsidering the caprification question in the new edition of select plants, and brought up also the progress report of the committee at the Hobart and Christchurch meetings. Baron von Mueller has since received an interesting letter on this essentially practical subject from Dr. G. Eisen, the fig and raisin expert of San Francisco, wherein occurs the following pertinent passage:]
The letter is dated to February as that is the latest that it could have been written to reach M from San Francisco by early March.
We have had genuine Smyrna figs growing here for over 12 years, but so far not a single fruit has matured of its own account. But last July I pollinated some 20 figs by means of the pollen from the male or capri fig. The effect was that four weeks later the 20 figs matured magnificently, but no others, although there were several hundred trees and thousands of fruit, which all dropped off.
2
In the 1888 edition of M's 'Select Plants' (B88.12.01) there is no mention of caprification in the entry for Ficus carica (pp. 176-7); in 1891 (B91.09.01, p. 203) there is a long passage, including discussion of the role of wasps. The report of the committee is B92.14.01.