THE SICILIAN- LEMON IXDUSTRY— GATHERING, ETC. 223 



Snipping and First Grading-The pickers take their 

 baskets to the roadways, where the foreman sits with several 

 women and a number of baskets of about a bushel capacity 

 lined with canvas. The lemons are taken one by one from the 

 pickers' baskets, and the stem is snipped off close with the 

 same pattern of snips used by lemon-gatherers in California 

 and Mildura. If apparently perfect, and of large size, it goes 

 into Xu. 1 basket; if perfect but smaller, into No. 2; and so on, 

 af.out f..ur grades being made. The defective or lower quality 

 fruit goes off at once, and is used for extracting oil of lemon, or 

 making citric acid or lemon peel. 



Drying.— The good fruit of first or second grade is at once 

 taken to the fruit house, where it is spread out on the floor (if 

 the tioor be stone, mats are spread over it). The depth and 

 length of time they remain depend on circumstances. The 

 object is to allow the moisture to evaporate from the skin, but 

 care must be taken that the lemons in the bottom layer do not 

 heat. They may be piled from one to three feet, and remain 

 from twenty-four hours up to six days. 



Sorting and Wrapping for Market.— When dry, the 

 lemons are carefully sorted over, all defective fruit being put 

 aside. The sound lemons are wrapped in tissue paper, care- 

 fully packed in boxes, and taken to the warehouse of the 

 merchants, who may either store the fruit or ship it. 



Storing Lemons. — If fruit is to be stored it is kept in cool 

 stores, and carefully gone over every three weeks. Each lemon 

 is unwrapped, examined, and if sound rewrapped and put back, 

 but if it shows any signs of not keeping it is taken away. I 

 believe lemons are also stored in dark underground grottos or 

 cellars without being wrapped and cased, but I did not see one. 

 When this method is adopted, I understand the fruit is gone 

 over every week or two, so that, put into a sentence, the art of 

 preserving lemons in Sicily is to handle them frequently with 

 care, and remove all showing signs of decay. 



Packing for Export. — I had much difficulty in gratifying 

 my determination to see the operation of packing for shipment. 

 This was in marked contrast to the freedom I was allowed in 

 visiting the orchards and watching all operations there, in- 

 cluding the drying and packing for market. I felt that the 



