CHAPTER II. 
FIG CULTURE IN VARIOUS FOREIGN COUNTRIES. 
FIG CULTURE IN SMYRNA AND ASIA MINOR. 
The best and most delicious figs when dried are those from Smyrna, 
known in the market as Smyrna figs. They derive their name from 
the seaport Smyrna, where they are packed and whence they are 
shipped to almost every country on the globe. The figs are, however, 
not grown in or very near to Smyrna, but in various places about 80 
to 150 miles south and east from that town. Smyrna is to-day one of 
the most prosperous towns on the Mediterranean shore and one of the 
most important in Asia Minor. This prosperity is due to the trade in 
fruit, principally raisins and olives. The fig trade is smaller, but so 
excellent is the fruit that this product more than any other has made 
the port known all over the civilized world, and apparently the more 
so the farther we go west. In California, more than elsewhere, the 
name of Smyrna has become a household word to the horticulturists, 
who have been trying for years to produce figs equal to those shipped 
from Smyrna. 
As is well known, Smyrna is situated in the western part of Asia 
Minor, and at the eastern end of the large and well-protected bay 
known as the Gulf of Smyrna. The latitude is 38°, corresponding 
approximately to that of San Francisco, but the climatic conditions 
of the places where the figs are grown correspond more properly to 
those of central and southern California, northern Sonora, southern 
Texas, ete. 
In the most ancient times of which we have record a considerable 
fig trade existed in Smyrna, and we are told that in the time of the 
earlier emperors of Rome, in the first century of our era, dried figs 
of the best quality were brought from Smyrna to Rome. This fame 
for excellent figs was enjoyed by Smyrna all through the Middle Ages 
and down to our own times. At the time of Henry VIII and Elizabeth 
Smyrna figs reached England. Itis, however, at a comparatively late 
date that the Smyrna fig trade reached the development it now pos- 
sesses. The great competitors with Smyrna figs were those grown in 
Algarve in Portugal and for centuries known as Pharo figs. These 
were for a time the most common figs in the European market and 
were almost the only ones consumed. In the beginning of this cen- 
tury, however, the Portuguese or Pharo figs began to deteriorate, 
while at the same time, principally through Greek influences, a marked 
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