THE SMYRNA FIG AT HOME AND ABROAD 31 



CHAPTER V. 

 HARVESTING AND DRYING THE SMYRNA FIG ABROAD. 



Before treating on this subject, it will not be amiss to verify my statements made 

 in an earlier chapter, that there is only one variety of Smyrna Fig, which has any 

 commercial value, namely the Lop Injir, it being the only one which is dried and 

 exported, and which has done more than any other one product to make the name of 

 Smyrna famous the world over. In my first trip to Smyrna, my only guide as to the 

 variety of fig planted there for commercial purposes was the habit of the trees and 

 the character of the foliage. My conclusions at that time, as to there being only one 

 variety of Smyrna Fig, were more fully confirmed on my second trip, when the ripe 

 figs were examined in many orchards. The Lop Injir was found to be the only fig 

 dried and exported; it therefore is the only one having any real commercial value. 



As has been previously stated, the orchards are well cultivated, but before drying 

 commences, the ground under the trees is cleaned of weeds, so the figs when they 

 drop can easily be seen and gathered. In the district from Ayassoulook to Aidin, the 

 harvesting in the season of 1901 commenced August 5, while further up the valley 

 the season is fully five days later. In the early part of the harvesting season of 1901, 

 westerly winds, which always carry a great deal of moisture, prevailed, and in 

 consequence of this, many of the figs soured, and the complaint was general by the 

 packers that the quality was inferior to that of the first figs. A few days before my 

 visit to the orchard district, the winds changed, and blew from the north, the growers 

 in consequence were elated, for the promise for a better quality of figs meant 

 correspondingly better returns. In my inspection of the orchards, a number of sour 

 and split figs were found, some of them having a black fungus growth inside, called by 

 the growers "Bassarah,". a Turkish word. The best figs are harvested in September, 

 the figs being larger and the climatic conditions in all years being more favorable for 

 the maturing of a higher grade of fruit in that month. 



Figs are gathered according to the rapidity with which the crop matures, early 

 In the morning or late in the afternoon. When the harvesting season is at its full 

 height the figs are gathered daily, but this is a matter in which the man in charge 

 uses his judgment, and is dependent on the weather and the rapidity with which the 

 figs ripen. The laborers, either men or women, gather the figs in baskets, holding 

 fully forty pounds, which are never filled but half full. The figs drop to the ground 

 of their own accord, but if a number of figs are seen in the trees which have reached 

 the proper stage of maturity, the trees are shaken vigorously, and those still remaining 

 are knocked off with Arundo Donax canes (false bamboo). A fig is mature when it 

 has lost its handsome form, and hangs limp and shriveled in the tree. So tenaciously 

 does it cling to the branch before reaching this stage it cannot be picked except 

 by tearing the skin and breaking it from the hard stem end adhering to the branch. 

 Nature, it seems, has made ample provision to have the figs remain in the trees until 

 they have reached the proper degree of ripeness. A fig gathered before it is mature 

 makes an absolutely worthless dried fruit, being without flavor and substance, and 

 so inferior is the quality it is difficult to believe it came from the same tree. 



During the harvesting season, the women receive four piestas and the men eight 

 piestas per day, working twelve hours, and boarding themselves. A piesta is a 

 little over four cents. 



