52 REPORT ON THE FIG MOTH IN SMYRNA. 
After inquiry, the writer is convinced that the railroad is able 
to transport the fig crop direct to Smyrna as promptly as it comes to 
the villages from the orchards, and that the packers in Smyrna are 
quite as able to handle it as fast as it can be turned over to them. 
From our point of view there is no reason, therefore, why figs should 
be detained in the interior unventilated in the bags, or in piles in 
the fig “ depots” exposed to moths, flies, and other sources of con- 
tamination. A week’s time is more than sufficient for the figs to 
reach the packer after they have been gathered from the “ serghi.” 
Observations show that most of the crop is held in the interior some 
time after harvesting, in many cases more than a month. The object 
of this is to bring better prices to the growers and the middlemen, at 
the expense of the packers, and to correspondingly increase the reve- 
nues to the local Government, regardless of what the consequences 
may be to the product or to the consumer. 
The practice of “holding” the figs by the producers and middle- 
men is of recent origin, and apparently is growing. So long as the 
responsible parties realize large profits from such a practice, as they 
undoubtedly do, it is not likely to be discontinued, except by stringent 
action on the part of those who consume the figs and are forced to pay 
highly for the injuries done. The packers are in no position to con- 
trol the supply, and can do nothing better than to take whatever figs 
they can get from the peasants and their representatives, at such time 
and price as offers, charging a correspondingly higher price for the 
packed figs. Americans may expect in the future to pay a higher 
price for figs inferior to those now imported, unless some decisive 
«ction is taken to stop this unwarranted retention of the crop inland. 
ELIMINATION OF LARVZE IN THE “KHANS.” 
The Smyrna “ khan” is not responsible for the wormy condition of 
figs. But as the packer is-responsible for the fig reaching the con- 
sumer, he also must be held accountable for the condition in which 
it reaches the consumer. If the fig is laden with “ worms,” he must 
rid it of these before it can be imposed upon the public as a sanitary 
article of diet. The experiments conducted in the “khans” were 
undertaken with the hope of discovering # means by which the 
packers could profitably furnish the American importers with sani- 
tary figs, free from fig “ worms” or other insect pests. 
In contemplating a means of eradicating larve from figs in the 
“Ihans” considerable dependence was placed upon the method used 
in this country for freeing flour mills of the related Mediterranean 
flour moth (E'phestia kuehniella) , viz, by hydrocyanic-acid gas fumi- 
gation. After examining the “khans” several reasons were found 
why the fumigation method could not be used: (1) Whatever venti- 
lation openings occur near the roofs in these buildings are not 
