AND HORTICULTURIST. 



91 



which is harsh to severe from Delaware to Maine, 

 and is, here, without frost or ice, except among the 

 Alps. Nature has indeed lavished on our country 

 her treasures of fertile soils and of minerals, but 

 she has given us also a hard winter, limiting our 

 productions, and giving us the task to provide for 

 innumerable wants unknown in milder climates. 



Hence we cannot grow the lemon and the or- 

 ange except in parts of Florida and Cahfornia, and 

 even there get them destroyed by frosts that will 

 happen, say once in a decennium. It is true our 

 oranges are of a good kind, but the best of our trees 

 will not yield anything like the Italian trees. In 

 Sicily a good orange tree in bearing yields on the 

 average five thousand oranges a year, a good 

 lemon tree ten thousand lemons a year, the fruit 

 coming along mostly all the year through, and, of 

 course, equally so the blossoms. Competition is 

 therefore out of the question, just as little as we 

 shall ever be able to compete for sugar with the 

 West Indies, where the cane is perennial, while it 

 has to be replanted every three years in Louisiana. 



Now the lemon, the orange and the olive are 

 rich sources of income in Italy, and none of them 

 require any particular care — the olive hardly any. 

 The olive tree grows freely all over the country, 

 except on the Alps ; the lemon and orange trees 

 grow freely and abundantly in the southern half, 

 and with nursing and in sheltered positions, also in 

 some portions of the northern half of this country. 

 Next in point of importance here is the vine, and, 

 in one sense, the whole country may be called one 

 vast vineyard, for the rocks and the hills and the 

 mountains are terraced and walled and cultivated 

 by the hand of man to produce the grape. At a 

 distance, you would think those heights were inac- 

 cessible, except to goats, and worthless, except for 

 timber. You get near them, and you find that 

 wherever a man could find a place to put his foot 

 down and not fall off, there he has planted a vine. 



The wine is of a quality which cannot compare 

 with French wine as to flavor or taste, and hence 

 is not exported. There has been for the last two 

 years, a good demand for it from France, but that 

 was owing to the failure there, and only for the 

 manufacture of and mixing with French wine. 

 Otherwise it is all drunk on the premises, that is, 

 consumed in Italy. Your readers must know that 

 water is considered here a blessing of heaven as an 

 article to wash with, or for navigation, or for driving 

 a mill, but nobody thinks it is made for drinking. 

 The same notion prevails in France. This explains 

 the enormous quantities of wine required. On the 

 other hand there is never — " hardly ever "—any 



drunkenness or intemperance. During five 

 months' stay in Italy I have seen but two individ- 

 uals the worse for drink. 



Now we in America can certainly raise grapes 

 which will make good drinkable wine. The grapes 

 though, which we have raised heretofore, do not 

 make a desirable kind. Those of Ohio are unre- 

 liable, and one year's wine does not in the least re- 

 semble last year's or next year's, nor is it drink- 

 able, except the quality happens to be unusually 

 good. Again, the California wines are much too 

 heavy and heady to be fit for daily use. But then 

 we have such variety of soil, that, with care and 

 study, we would surely produce the right article. 

 But would it be wanted, when produced ? Who 

 can and will give our people the taste for it, and 

 thus redeem them from the curse of whisky and 

 from the stupefying beer ? 



Pardon the digression, and I proceed. 



Some other fruits are grown here which we have 

 not, at least not in perceptible quantities. There 

 are, for instance, figs enough raised here to ex- 

 clude any importation of them, and to make them 

 a common fruit for dessert, both fresh and dry. 

 Likewise the Japan medlar, and the apricot, and 

 divers kinds of plums, none of which, I believe 

 grow with us at all, but are here quite common. 

 Nor have we the fruit of the stone pine, which, 

 however, to my taste, is nothing to deplore. I 

 could go without them all the rest of my days, as 

 well as without the artichoke, which is served up 

 here the greater part of the year. 



But whilst we have not a good many of the 

 Italian fruits and vegetables, Italy has most of 

 ours, and of tolerable quality, too, and in abun- 

 dance. She likewise grows all our cereals, Indian 

 corn included, which goes here by the name of 

 Turkish grain ; also hemp, flax, rice sufficient 

 for her own consumption, and, on her mountains 

 raises a great many head of cattle— enough to en- 

 able her to export a good many millions of dollars' 

 worth of them, every year, to her neighbors, 

 France and Switzerland. 



Coming, however, down to the lowlands and 

 plains, the absence of good grass is very striking. 

 It does not seem, though, to affect agriculture, 

 since cattle, sheep and horses look, as a general 

 thing, in good enough condition. But the horti- 

 cultural eye, and the eye for beauty, miss the 

 grass sorely. And this brings me right into your 

 particular department. The Italian taste for gar- 

 dening is not ours, nor that of the English or Ger- 

 mans. Theirs is the architectonic style, handed 

 down to them from their predecessors of the land, 



