186 THE FIG: ITS HISTORY, CULTURE, AND CURING. 
with the eyes pointing in the same direction. Fill the box with loaded 
trays, light the sulphur, and then close the door. 
The late B. M. Lelong suggested the following method of creating the 
sulphurfumes: Place asmall kerosene stove on the floor of the sulphur 
house, and on the stove a heavy sheet of iron 13 inches thick. Light 
the stove, and when the iron is hot, but not red-hot, extinguish the 
light and throw the sulphur on the plate. The fumes rapidly fill the 
house, enter the figs, and kill the ferment, and also act on the skin of 
the figs. The amount of sulphur to be used varies, but a couple of 
handfuls are sufficient if the box be tight and the figs not too watery. 
It takes about five minutes to fill the house with aulphink fumes and 
six or seven minutes more are required to sulphur the figs. If exposed 
too long their taste will become too acid and the skin will peel off 
when the figs are handled. It is preferable to have a little darker 
color than to have the figs sour. All sulphuring should be done in 
the morning or before noon. The sulphured figs should be exposed 
to dry air and sunshine in order to get a good color and as clear a 
taste as possible. It is unfortunate that the market accepts sulphured 
figs and that it requires the figs to be excessively light colored. 
Some growers sulphur their figs for six hours, and some even leave 
the trays in the sulphuring box over night. It is deplorable that the 
market is such as to command the sale of such fruit, which, to the 
writer at least, is unpalatable in the extreme. 
Genuine Smyrna figs never require sulphuring. 
It is hardly necessary to add that only light-colored figs should be 
sulphured. Black figs if sulphured assume a very disagreeable color. 
A gentleman who was born in the Smyrna district furnished the 
writer with the following method of sulphuring, though it is not 
thought that he practiced the method while there. He recommended 
one-half sulphur and one-half saltpeter mixed, the fresh figs to be 
exposed to the fumes of this mixture for fifteen to twenty minutes, 
then for three days, and afterwards sweated for several weeks. The 
writer has not seen figs treated thus. 
DIPPING WHILE FRESH. ie 
Instead of sulphuring, some growers dip the figs while fresh in boil- 
ing water. Common salt water is best, but in lack of it 1; pounds of 
salt to 50 gallons of water will answer. First rinse the fresh figs in 
fresh water, then dip the baskets or buekets in which the figs are 
placed in the boiling salt water for one second or more, and repeat 
onee or twice. This will soften their skins. 
For dipping, Mr. A. Gartenlaub proceeds as follows: First wash the 
figs in pure water, then dip in a solution of 13 pounds of saltpeter to 
50 gallons of water, the water to be boiling hot. Dip once or twice. 
This method he claims to be better than the use of salt. The writer 
has neither seen nor practiced this method. 
