I found 137 years of Popular Science Magazine archives on the Internet, for free. I searched for articles on ficus carica. Three articles from the 1800's came up. The reading is interesting. They are discussing the need for fig pollination without understanding common vs smyrna. 

Be sure to note the page number. Two of the links go directly to the intended article. One does not and will require a secondary search once the artilce somes up. There's a small search box at the top of the page. Search ficus to get to page 778.

http://www.popsci.com/results?query=ficus+carica

Sue

Thanks
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Popular Science, in partnership with Google, just put its 137-year archive online, for free. You can't yet browse by issue; rather, the entry point is a keyword search box.
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