40) THE FIG: ITS HISTORY, CULTURE, AND CURING. 
article of important diet. Few figs are dried, and they entirely for 
home consumption, not for export. In the southern parts of Italy, 
however, the fig, fresh and dried, is looked upon as an important and 
cheap article of diet, especially during the winter months, and the 
failure to secure a large fig crop is looked upon as a calamity, both on 
account of the diminished food supply and the pecuniary loss in the 
export trade; and the export trade must mean, in this part of Italy, 
not only the export to foreign districts, but the much greater export 
to Italian districts where figs are not grown, or at least not dried. 
While figs are growing almost everywhere in southern Italy, com- 
paratively few localities make fig culture an industry. Thus for fig 
eulture favored spots appear comparatively few and far between, con- 
fined to certain valleys or to certain slopes which either through soil, 
location, or climate conditions produce figs superior for drying. 
The most northern district in which superior dried figs are produced 
is Pozzuoli, not far from Naples. The soil in this district appears to 
be of voleanic alluvium, especially adapted to producing figs of thin 
and white skin, good flavor, and greatsweetness. In the Naples mar- 
ket these Pozzuoli figs compete successfully with those of more south- 
ern districts and bring even a better price than the Calabrian figs. In 
the same vicinity we find a considerable quantity of dried figs pro- 
duced on the island Ischia, at Sora in Terra di Lavoro, at Vico Equense, 
peninsula Sorrentina, etc. Asa rule these northern figs are small, 
averaging about one-third the size of the Smyrna figs, while in sweet- 
ness they are hardly equal to the Smyrnas. As we proceed south we 
find the figs slightly increasing in size, and to some degree even in 
sweetness. In southern Italy the principal fig centers are found in 
the provinces of Terra d’ Otranto, Cosenza, Catanzaro, and Reggio, 
the latter generally known as the three Calabrias. Other centers 
for fig culture are found in the provinces of Lecce, Salerno, and 
Basilicata. In Terra d’ Otranto, on the Adriatic side, excellent dried 
figs are produced at Taranto, Brindisi, and Melpignano. In Lecce, in 
1873, the two communes of Cutrofiano and Galatina produced 5,700 
quintals or 638,000 pounds of figs, while the three ports, Taranto, 
Gallipoli, and Brindisi, exported in 1872 about 70,000 quintals, equal 
to 7,840,000 pounds. The whole exports. of the provinee Terra 
d@’ Otranto for three years of 1870 to 1872 reached 152,099 quintals, 1 
quintal being about 112 pounds. 
The production of dried figs in the immediate vicinity of Leece 
in 1869 reached 11,000 quintals, and has since that time somewhat 
increased. In the province of Catanzaro the exportation of figs, in 
1874, amounted to 7,000 quintals, or 780,000 pounds. In the province 
of Cosenza the three principal localities for the production of dried 
figs are Cosenza, Castrovillari, and Paola, while the following com- 
munes also made a specialty of drying figs: Amantea, Belvedere, 
