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tribe are so subject, or when from special causes it becomes expedient 

 to lower tbe height of the tree or otherwise to strengthen it radically. 

 The first and less drastic operation of trimming " Kimondamento" is 

 merely the elimination of the dry twigs, suckers, stunted or rank vege- 

 tation, which have shot np or sprouted during the preceding spring, 

 summer, or autumn. The Sicilians, however, as 1 have said, appear to 

 be insensible to the advantages of preserving the leafy covering of 

 the plant in a climate in which shade is such a desideratum during 

 three-fourths of the year, and mutilate all their ornamental trees such 

 as acacias, whose scant foliage and unsightly bulging boles are so many 

 evidences of the injudicious and unsparing use of the hatchet in which the 

 Sicilian delights. In the case of fruit trees we have in addition to the 

 disfigurement, to deplore a decline in the amount of fruit. 



When, therefore, the pruning knife or hatchet are resorted to, they 

 should only be on emergencies warranting their employ. Such occa- 

 sions present themselves most frequently in those exposed tracts of land 

 over which the furious winter sciroccos blow so persistently, and on 

 which, consequently, the trees need cultivating a basso-fusto, or, in the 

 contrary case, when the site is sheltered from the wind, but is also some 

 what shut in and excluded from the beneficial influence of the sun's 

 rays, in which case the upward growth of the tree should be encouraged 

 by the severance of one of the two bifurcations into which the parent 

 stem splits Outside these extreme cases, growers should only have re- 

 course to the pruning knife at long intervals, and even then every care 

 should be taken to avoid over-lopping. 



However this may be, and whatever method the practical arboricul- 

 turist selects as the fittest, the trimmer and pruner, and more especially 

 the latter, should never attempt to operate ere the fruit be gathered. 

 Thus, orange trees planted on the sea-board or at the level of the sea, 

 can be pruned without material inconvenience even as early as January, 

 provided the season be of average mildness, extreme of heat and cold 

 being equally dangerous to the health of the plant during and after the 

 operation. The expediency of operating on trees whose fruit has been 

 already picked, is so universally recognised, and is indeed so evident 

 that lemon-trees which often continue to produce up to June, are never 

 trimmed or pruned until July. 



Manuring. 



The trees are dressed triennially in most parts of Sicily, unless the ex- 

 treme poorness of the soil should requ're more frequent and more co- 

 pious applications of the fertilising compound. The same average pe- 

 riods for recurrent dressing are, I believe, observed on the mainland, 

 although less generally, on account, in part, of the greater extent of the 

 cultivation of certain varieties of the citrus species, which require more 

 manuring. At whatever recurrent periods the fertilising substance 

 should always be applied during winter. 



Gathering of the Fruit. 

 The proper season for collecting the various and successive crops de- 

 pend, of course, on the greater or less maturity of the fruits, their kind 

 and the ports or countries for which they are destined, and subject to 

 these conditions, of the successive gatherings and garnerings of the fruit 



