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imported and native species, all of which have absorbed a 
great portion of the activity of the Directors and their 
assistants; this transformation is, moreover, in accordance with 
the modern policy of Botanical Institutes. 
Before Italy possessed Libya or Somaliland or Eritrea, the 
Palermo climate had already presented Sicily with the orange 
and lemon, themselves an inestimable source of wealth. It 
has already given the impetus to studies of the most important 
varieties of cotton, bananas, pineapples, etc. Subsequently 
the studies of acclimatization underwent a further develop- 
ment, and were directed to the most varied plants having an 
agricultural, economic, and social interest. From this arose 
an immense volume of work evidenced by the numerous pub- 
lications and notices inserted in the Bulletins of the Botanical 
Garden ‘and the Colonial Garden of Palermo. 
Up to the year 1906 the studies of acclimatization possessed, 
with a few exceptions only, the character of scientific investi- 
gations. After that time they were directed to those specu- 
lative purposes which made it incumbent to establish, from 
the experimental field, the fundamental economical data for 
each of the crops experimented with. In this way, and in 
consequence of the positive results obtained, the first demon- 
stration fields were started, of which those relating to cotton 
assumed a development extending all over the island. 
This was the work of propaganda, carried on by word of 
mouth, for introducing crops which answered the requirements 
of the land, the climate, and the market. 
Naturally the selection of the species to be experimented 
with brought about, for reasons easily understood, a synonymy 
between exotic and colonial plants, the more so if it is con- 
sidered that, in the same way as Sicily represents the link 
between Italy and Africa, the Colonial Garden forms in its 
studies and in its aims the link between the flora of the two 
countries connecting colonial and home agriculture with each 
other. 
The questions to which the Garden has chiefly directed its 
attention may be summarized as follows: — 
1. Investigations of summer forage plants. 
2. Utilization of arid lands. 
3. Introduction of industrial crops. 
The first is intended to promote the raising of cattle and 
the consequent production of manure, the second aims at the 
utilization of extensive strips of shore where the outcropping 
rock makes any of the ordinary crops impossible, and the last 
tends to introduce to the island industries which depend on 
vegetable products. 
In dealing with these three questions, the Colonial Garden of 
