The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1890-01-17
miscellaneous.
THE FIGS OF SMYRNA.

Observations Taken During Walk in
Garden in the Adm District.
1t is only when the trees are from five
to seven years old that they begin to
bear fruit useful for commercial pur-
poses, but once that age is attained the
tree will yield its annual crop for sixty
or seventy, or, with careful pruning, for
eighty years. The fruit does not at all
resemble the ordinary black eating fig.
1t is a short, pulpy fruit. A large one
would weigh quite four ounces The
color is a bright yellow green, but when
you cut into it the flesh is white, with a
center of dark red.
The taste of these figs is poor and
rather faint, but the pulp exudes an
abundance of amber colored juice, so
that they seem with the slightest pres
sure almost to drip with honey. Their
promise to the taste is more than their
performance. We know how beautiful
a cherry orchard, or garden wall COW
cred with peach trees, can look in the
early weeks Of mild spring. The fig
tree differs from almost all fruit trees in
this respect, that it seems to bear no
flowers OF course it does fower-if it
did not it could bear no fruit-but it
flowers invisibly. In fact the flower is
concealed in what ultimately becomes
the fruit If you cut open fig when it
has attained little more than third of
its full size the flowers will be seen in
full development, and it is at this stage
that, if the stamens are perfect, fertiliza-
ton takes place, and the fruit swells and
ripens.
Walking through fig garden in the
Adm district in the month of June, you
will see strange and almost incompre-
hensible operation being carried on. The
trees are by this time covered with fruit,
though the figs are less than half the size
to which they subsequently attain. The
boughs which bear them are often not
more than few feet from the ground.
One of the peasants in the garden takes
a basket filled with small, green figs
strung loosely on pieces of cord. Some
of these cords will have only a couple of
figs, and some as many as six. The
workman filings the cords up into the
branches, on the twigs of which they are
caught, SO that every tree shall be
adorned with one of these singular neck
laces. 1t is hard to guess their purpose.
These strung figs are wild fruit, bitter
in taste and quite useless as food, but
they have this singular property, that
they arrest the tendency of the other
figs to drop to the ground before they
attain maturity. Sometimes the crop of
these Capri figs, as they are called, fails,
but SO useful is the purpose they serve
that growers will give as much as a pi-
astre, or four cents, for each fig. This
price is so high that, as a rule it will
swallow up all the sprouts expected from
the crop. From the end of June and
through July the fig swells and ripens.
In its earlier stages the fruit is not very
palatable, but on attaining maturity it
is sweet and agreeable, juicy and much
relished, though somewhat laxative.
This is the season for the pilferers. The
crop is so valuable that watchers are
stationed in the garden, who keep watch
day and night.
These watchers, called beckji, with
their shelters and surroundings, might
be designed for art rather than occupa-
ton, SO picturesque is their appearance.
Their accoutrement reminds one that
Asia Minor is still great hunting ground
for brigands. Quite museum of knives
and pistols is displayed in the belt and
heavy iron bound cudgel is probably
rather a symbol of Office than actually
needed for protection. The guardians
arhor is orapara llv cituatad npar the dry-
ing ground of the plucked figs. 1t is
there that the greatest value is concen-
trated.-Harper's Magazine.