Everyone likes canned figs. The taste does not have to be educated, as
is often the case with the fresh fruit. The factories at Biloxi, Miss.,
and at New Orleans, La., appreciate this fact, and for several years
have been putting increasing quantities of the canned product on the
market. Up to the panic of 1893 the demand for these goods was very
active, and the canners paid as high as 4 cents per pound for the fresh
figs and could not get enough to fill their orders. Since then the
demand for all luxuries has fallen off and factories have curtailed
their packing, but have not materially reduced the price of the product,
which has always been very high. There seems to be no reason, aside from
the larger quantity of sugar required, why figs should not be grown and
canned as cheaply as peaches. If this were done the demand would soon be
very large. It is in this direction, if at all, that there seems to be
an opening for the building up of the fig industry in the South.
The processes used by the factories in canning figs differ somewhat from
household methods. They also differ among themselves. Each factory has
worked out a plan of its own, the details of which are regarded to some
extent as trade secrets. In one factory, whose product has been much
admired, the process consists in boiling the fruit at first in a very
light sirup, allowing it to cool, and then transferring it with
successive heatings and coolings to sirups of gradually increasing
density. The whole process requires nearly two days. In the finished
product the fig, while holding its shape perfectly, has become partially
transparent, and as the final sirup is clear and free from sediment the
fruit is very attractive.