THE FIG. 243 



gathered, are often useless for keeping, or sell at very in- 

 ferior prices, owing to not having been properly prepared. 

 When fully ripe, a state it is ascertained to have reached 

 by the appearance of a sugary tear in the eye of the fruit, 

 it should be gathered, and spread out on wicker hurdles 

 or boards, exposed to the full heat of the sun on a roof or 

 against a wall, housed during the night or whenever rain 

 may threaten, and turned at first twice a day and after- 

 wards once ; finally flattened with the hand, and packed 

 in rush baskets or in boxes intermixed wibh layers of 

 laurel-leaves. 3 n some parts of France, in order to harden 

 their skins, they are dipped, before drying, into a hot ley 

 made of the ashes of the fig-tree, which are remarkably 

 rich in alkaline salts. All unsound ones must be care- 

 fully excluded, and the different varieties should also be 

 kept apart, as some dry more quickly than others. In 

 rainy or foggy seasons recourse must be had to artificial 

 heat; but this so deteriorates the flavour of the fruit 

 that its value, when thus dried, is diminished by at least 

 one-third ; and the inferiority of the Greek figs is in a 

 great measure accounted for by this method being ordi- 

 narily employed in their preparation, though, where the 

 system of caprification has been followed, the heating 

 process has' at least the good effect of killing the eggs 

 deposited by the insects which had been invited to make 

 their home in them, and which, if suffered to mature into 

 worms, would injure the fruit even more seriously than 

 does the oven. In most places where they are plentiful 

 they form the principal part of the food of the poorer 

 classes during a great portion of the year. It is in this 

 dried form, too, that the fig, which when fresh finds but 

 few admirers in England, is most familiar to Us, forming 

 a favourite dish at the winter dessert, as is sufficiently 

 proved by the fact of our imports, principally sent from 

 Turkey,* amounting a few years ago to 20,000 cwt., though 

 the duty then imposed amounted to a guinea per cwt., or 

 rather more than 100 per cent, addition to the price of figs 



* The figs from Smyrna are considered the best : the word " Eletne," often 

 prefixed to these, is sometimes mistaken by the uninitiated for the name of a 

 place, but it is really a Turkish term meaning " choice " or " selected." 



16 2 



