228 STATE BOARD OF HORTICUr.TURE. 



left hand he holds a small sponge, and with his right hand he 

 picks up the piece of rind and, with a deft circular movement, 

 rotates it against the sponge, at the same time bending it 

 backward to break the oil glands, and so force the oil onto 

 the sponge. The operation is very quickly done, but when 

 performed by a skilled hand completely exhausts the supoly 

 of oil of lemon. When the sponge is saturated it is squeezed 

 into the bowl. There is at first a large proportion of lemon 

 juice, etc., with the oil; but this sinks to the bottom and the 

 oil is poured off, filtered, and as quickly as possible put into 

 copper "carboys" for exportation. The method of payment 

 is, as a rule, peculiar, each workman being paid in proportion 

 to the weight of oil he extracts from each thirty-five kilos of 

 rinds. 



Salted Lemons. — Walking along the wharf the day after 

 my arrival in Palermo, I saw some hundreds of large 

 casks, which, I was informed, were filled with salted lemons. 

 Further inquiries showed that large quantities of lemons are 

 exported in this form to Leghorn, Genoa, Britain, and other 

 parts of Europe, to America, and even to Australia, chiefly for 

 making candied lemon peel. Although the finest fruit is never 

 thus dealt with, lemons to be salted must of necessity be sound. 

 The fruit is usually halved, and then soaked in salt water for 

 from three to seven da\'s prior to shipment. On arrival at its 

 destination it is soaked in fresh water repeatedly until all the 

 brine is removed. The salt preserves the peel satisfactorily, 

 but removes the essential oil, so that the fine flavor of the 

 fresh lemon is quite lost. For this reason only fruit which 

 can not be used on the island or profitably shipped fresh is 

 dealt with in this way. The fruit is halved merely to insure a 

 thorough preservation of the rind by an equal saturation of the 

 inner and outer surfaces. 



Candied Lemon Peel. — As far as I could learn, no candied 

 lemon peel is prepared in Sicily. In "The Sayings of Agur" 

 it is written — 



" Tliere be three things which are too wonderful for me ; 

 Yea, four, which I know not ; 

 The way of an eagle in the air; 

 The way of a serpent upon a rock ; 

 The way of a ship in the midst of the sea ; 

 Anil the way of a man witli a maid." — Prhverbs. 



