140 



FOREIGN NOTICES. 



productive article, and cultivated to a great extent. 

 It has the advantage of thriving in the most arid, 

 burnt up situations, cannot bear wet, and requires 

 little labor beyond the digging the ground once or 

 twice in the year to keep it from being choked by 

 weeds. It is now beginning to shoot, having been 

 pruned down to six inches or a foot from the ground. 

 It grows up every year to the height of three or 

 four feet, and %vhen in full foliage, the leaves and 

 young shoots are gathered and dried for use. The 

 produce is partly consumed in the local tanneries, 

 partly exported. The Olive trees form an impor- 

 tant feature in the landscape, and at once indicate 

 the extent of the dry parts of the valleys. But in- 

 dividually they are not fine, apparently from bad 

 pruning and want of care. The Oranges and Le- 

 mons, on the contrary, in all parts of the vale where 

 there is irrigation, are very luxuriant ; and looking 

 down from the heights of Monreale, for instance, 

 nothing can exceed the rich look of the Orange 

 grounds, forming a deep green mass, sometimes of 

 miles in extent, here and there tinged with gold 

 where the fruit is still on the trees, and the effect 

 of the whole is improved by the Walnut trees, (as 

 yet leafless.) projecting here and there far above 

 the general level. 



The great exportation of the fruit is for North 

 America, from whence there are often eighteen or 

 twenty vessels at once loading with them in the 

 harbor. The Palermetan Oranges in general are 

 good, much better than the Neapolitan, but often 

 inferior to the Maltese and Balearic ones. I have 

 here for thp first time eaten good mandarines, about 

 the size of a fine common Orange, but having a 

 considerable yacuity between the rind and the en- 

 docarp. They are very sweet and good flavored, 

 and the cells separate so easily that they are very 

 agreeable to eat, but will not bear exportation. 

 The Vines here are cultivated more in the French 

 than in the Italian manner — pruned short and tied 

 to stakes, and a good deal of care is taken in the 

 working the ground. The result is, the common 

 wines are fit for drinking, which they scarcely ever 

 are in Italy. The Caroub (Ceratonia siliqua) is 

 not much planted in this neighborhood, though it 

 thrives well and produces abundantly ; but in some 

 places on the south coast, there are villages which 

 make it almost their sole revenue, and export it in 

 great quantities. Mulberries for silk are scarce and 

 much neglected, though the situation appears well 

 suited to them, and I am told, that endeavors are 

 now making to extend and improve their cultivation, 

 and the rearing of the silkworm. There are a good 

 many fruit trees, chiefly Figs, Walnuts, Almonds, 

 and Peaches, and a very iew Pistachio nuts. I 

 have not observed the Jiijube ; the Date trees are 

 very few, and can only be planted for ornament, for 

 although it flowers freely, and never freezes, yet the 

 fruit does not come to perfection. Forest trees are 

 only to be met with in ornamental plantations, for 

 the hills around the vale have long been deprived of 

 their primitive woods, and it is with great difficulty 

 that an evergreen Oak or a Quercus pubescens may 

 here and there be found as a shrub among the rocks. 

 The flowering Ash (Fraxinus ornus) which is in- 

 digenous, may sometimes be seen, and is here and 

 there cultivated for manna, but not much in this 



immediate neighborhood, though in other parts of 

 the island it is said to be sometimes an article of 

 importance. With all this arboreous and frutescent 

 cultivation, and the numerous kitclien gardens in 

 the vicinity of the town, little room is left in the 

 vale of Palermo (containing certainly above fifty 

 square miles) for meadows or for grain ; indeed, 

 what are called meadows are scarcely entitled to 

 the name. They are usually a weedy lookins mass, 

 chiefly Lotus oniithopodioides, edulis and biflorus, a 

 few Medicagos, Vetches, and other Leguminosa;, 

 intermixed with a very few Graminea', and a num- 

 ber of miscellaneous plants, very beautiful to the 

 eye now that their herbage is green, when not com- 

 pletely hid by the mass of bright-colored flowers, 

 but which a day or two's sirocco is enough to wither 

 up. and are at the best but of small produce. The 

 best pastures where horses and cattle are reared 

 are in the interior, and towards the south of the 

 island. The grain of the vale of Palermo is chiefly 

 in small patches, scattered over the lower parts, 

 and extending up the .sides of the hills up to the 

 very tops, either on the northern sides or where 

 the soil lies deep, in many places in acclivities so 

 steep that they must be entirely cultivated by hand, 

 and where the soil would never remain without ter- 

 racing, were this part of island exposed to the tor- 

 rents of rain which deluge the eastern portion in 

 the season of storms. There are, however, some 

 broad valleys in this part of Sicily entirely occupied 

 by arable land ; we crossed one between Alcamo 

 and Segestha, where the crops looked clean and 

 healthy ; the chief kinds cultivated are Wheat and 

 Barley, with a little Rye and Oats, Beans in great 

 quantities, a few Peas and Lentils, large fields of 

 Lupins, but they are chiefly as in Catalonia, sown 

 on the fallows to be ploughed in. They grow to 

 the height of three or four feet, but are very little 

 used as fodder (for which they are chiefly cultiva- 

 ted at Naples.) They, as well as the Peas and 

 Beans, are frequently infested by the Orobanche 

 pruinosa, called by the Sicilians Lupa,a very hand- 

 some sweet-scented species, growing as tall as the 

 Lupin, which it generally kills. It is precisely the 

 same as in Catalonia and Roussillon, where Lapey- 

 rouse first described it. Flax is grown to a great 

 extent in all the valleys, and there are more green 

 crops raised for forage than in those parts of Italy 

 I have seen, especially the Hedysarum coronarium 

 now coming into flower, giving to the sides of some 

 hills a beautiful crimson hue, whilst others are 

 tinged with the rich orange of the Lotus biflorus. 

 Kitchen garden culture in the vale of Palermo is 

 very good, and the mode of irrigation is the same 

 as in Roussillon and Catalonia, probably in both 

 countries handed down from the Moors. The ve- 

 getables now selling are chiefly artichokes in im- 

 mense quantities, which the lower orders buy ready 

 boiled in the streets. Endive and Cos Lettuce, Cab? 

 bages, chiefly a kind of Turnip-rooted, not exactly 

 the Kohl-rabi, but one with the lower part of the 

 petioles and stalk thickened like Celery or Finoc- 

 chio ; this Cabbage, as well as Lettuces, is much 

 eaten by the people in the streets raw ; Finocchio 

 is also still plentiful ; and Beans and Peas are al- 

 ready abundant ; what we have oaten of the two 

 latter have been generally fine and gopd ; the low- 



