Appendix. 2 79 



overstocking the market. Amongst the commercial trans- 

 actions the Association proposes to make, are to establish 

 agencies in different parts of the world, and to establish 

 factories for the manufacture of lemon-juice and essences. 

 In November, 1884, eight steamships left the port of Palermo 

 for the United States laden with green fruit, numbering 

 24,811 boxes of oranges, and 47,269 boxes of lemons, being 

 4,603 boxes of oranges less, and 11,903 boxes of lemons more 

 than in the same month of 1883. In December, 1884, thirteen 

 steamships left Palermo for the United States with green 

 fruit on board. They loaded at this port and other ports of 

 the island 80,298 boxes of oranges and 57,191 boxes of 

 lemons, showing as compared with the same month in 1883 

 a diminution of 40,185 boxes of oranges and 63,234 boxes of 

 lemons. -The green fruit crop of Spain having totally failed, 

 it is hoped that Sicily will reap the benefit of the disaster 

 and towards the beginning of the present year prices had 

 gone up in England. In January last sixteen British steamers 

 and two Italian vessels were employed in the fruit trade with 

 the United States, carrying a total of 54,778 boxes of 

 oranges and 62,359 boxes of lemons from Palermo, a diminu- 

 tion of 55,416 boxes of oranges and 62,359 boxes of lemons. 

 The exporters have thus kept back their produce and not 

 overstocked the market." 



While the preceding facts come from the British Consul 

 in Palermo, Vice-Consul Franck of Catania says, under the 

 head of " Oranges and Lemons," " These important products, 

 which a few years ago promised to become a branch of com- 

 mercial resource to the island, have proved instead a failure 

 to all those who turned their fields and grounds into orange 

 and lemon groves. Prices in America (the chief country 

 where exported) are so very low, that it is more convenient 

 for the producers to let the fruit rot on the trees than to go 

 to the expense of packing it up for exportation." 



