THE SICILIAN LEMON INDUSTRY CULTURE. 209 



months, and are set out in the nurserj^ in the following spring, 

 when about eighteen inches high. 



Method of Culture.— The amount of labor involved in rais- 

 ing a lemon tree and bringing it into bearing appears to be 

 many times greater than with us, and I think we expect to 

 obtain crops two or three years earlier than does the Sicilian, 

 who does not bud his stocks until the fourth or fifth year, and 

 does not expect them to bear until they are eight years old. 

 In this connection it should also be mentioned, that if he waits 

 three years longer he expects his trees to give him a crop for 

 from forty to one hundred years. It is stated that in some 

 cases both orange and lemon trees in Sicily live to be two 

 handred years old. In thinking over this I am led to ask, Do 

 we force our trees too much? Were the stocks used on our old 

 trees of a poor quality? Or why do our old trees cease to pro- 

 duce good fruit and die so much earlier than those of Sicily? 

 I do not know, but it may be worth considering these questions. 

 The nursery is very carefully chosen, the two main consider- 

 ations being the soil and the sunny aspect. After being 

 thoroughly well worked it is divided into small plots, each with 

 a raised mound of soil. These plots are not of uniform size. 

 In some districts what is called the "Mettere a Casella" (plant- 

 ing in a cell) system is adopted. In this system the nursery is 

 divided into small cells or plots about eighteen inches square, 

 and a year-old seedling, generally about eighteen inches high, 

 is planted in each corner of the cell. Each plant is tied to a 

 straight stick, and so made to grow as straight as possible. At 

 the beginning of the third year alternate plants are taken out 

 and replanted. This is called planting in "piantonaio." In 

 the fifth year the stocks are usually budded. I was struck 

 with the fine, large, tall, straight saplings which the stocks 

 formed in their fifth year. 



In other districts a somewhat different method is followed. 

 The plots are much larger. Each one is surrounded by a 

 mound of soil, and is placed end on to an irrigation channel, so 

 arranged that the water can be run onto the plots one after the 

 other for the frequent irrigations. In these plots the seedlings 

 are set out at a distance of not less than eighteen inches. The 

 plants are carefully tended and watered every week during the 

 first year, and every second week afterwards. In the fifth year 

 14c 



