Ripe figs are very perishable. To be marketed successfully they must be handled with great care. It is best to pick them in the morning, while still cool. They should be taken from the tree with the stem attached—great care being exercised not to bruise them in handling—and placed in small, shallow baskets, in which they are to be marketed. In large packages their weight will bruise them badly. The ordinary quart strawberry basket crate is a suitable package for marketing figs. They will carry better, however, in flat trays, holding but a single layer. This form of package is especially desirable for the larger varieties. Figs should hang on the tree until quite ripe and develop their full sweetness and flavor, but in this condition they are soft and perishable and must be consumed at once. For marketing at a distance it is necessary to pick them while still quite firm. This is unfortunate, for though they will soften and become quite edible, they will lack the fine quality of tree-ripened fruit. This fact will always be an obstacle to the successful introduction of the fresh fig into distant markets. When picked in right condition the fruit will keep from twenty-four to thirty-six hours at the ordinary temperature and may be shipped short distances by express. Figs ripen in midsummer when the weather is hottest, and this is one reason why they are so difficult to handle. Like other fruits they will keep longer at lower temperatures. They do well under refrigeration, and by using refrigerator cars it is quite possible to put them on the more distant Northern markets in good condition. This has been done experimentally in connection with other fruit shipments, but it is not often attempted. Fresh figs are not known or appreciated in Northern markets, and consequently the demand is too limited to encourage shipments. It seems doubtful if the distant shipment of fresh figs will ever become a profitable business. The fruit is more perishable than any other that is generally marketed. It can be handled only by the most careful and experienced persons, and even then it is not in a condition to show its best quality. Ripening in midsummer, when the Northern markets are crowded with many well-known fruits, and not being specially attractive to the eye, fresh figs would at best gain favor slowly. The fact that many people do not care for them at the first would be another obstacle in the way of their popularity. Moreover, the fig is a tedious crop to handle, when in proper condition for market. It is necessary to pick the trees over carefully every day during the season, or much fruit will be overripe. With large trees, this involves much labor; the acrid juice of the immature figs eats into the fingers of the pickers and packers, while rainy weather occasions heavy loss by the cracking of the fruit, which renders it unfit for market.