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Mountain planting — It is usually necessary to build a rampart of 

 stones in the shape of a crescent on the lower side of the hole to pre- 

 vent the soil from being washed away. On "Kopjes" and hill sides the 

 trees must be planted on such spots as offer a position, unless the hill 

 has s )il enough to be terraced, but on open arable land they should be 

 planted in rows from 12 to 15 yards apart. The intervening ground 

 can be used for garden crops, but these, must not be grown within four 

 feet of the young trees, although the ground round the trees may ad- 

 vantageously be dug over when the rest is prepared for cropping. Ex- 

 hausting crops, such as corn and mealies, must not be grown, but cab- 

 bages and garden produce generally will do no harm. 



Grafting. — It is better to let the plants obtain a strong growth be- 

 fore attempting to graft them, the third year being about as early as it 

 is prudent to do it. If a plant is very full of leaf it is desirable to leave 

 it alone and not to graft it at all, for a reason which will appear below, 

 and also because being leafy it may be taken to be a good variety. The 

 season for grafting here is from the middle of May to the end of June, 

 the grafter being careful to see that the bark opens easily. The best 

 plan is to graft on the boughs and not on the stem, leaving the smaller 

 boughs to utilise the winter deposit of sap, which may otherwise prove 

 injurious to the grafts. These boughs can be cut off in the following 

 year. The carob can also be satisfactorily budded, or grafted by saw- 

 ing off the trunk and cleaving it. In windy situations it will be neces- 

 sary to bind canes to the grafted boughs to stiffen them, and to pre- 

 vent the grafts from moving. The best two varieties of carob are both 

 called here the " Honey bag :" one bears a long narrow pod, the other a 

 short wide one. 



The object of leaving a fair sprinkling (say 25 per cent.) of ungrafted 

 trees in a grove is the following. The grafted tree produces almost ex- 

 clusively female flowers, the ungrafted tree males. Unless these flowers 

 are in due proportion there can be no crop ; and in fact this was the 

 primary cause of the failure of a carob grove in Sicily, a cause which 

 was discovered and remedied by Professor Bianca. In planting these 

 trees on ordinary arable land great inequality will often be found in the 

 plants, which arises from the fact that the carob cannot support water. 

 Hence, where water accumulates in the subsoil the tree will not grow, 

 whereas, where the water drains away, it will grow freely, and for this 

 reason a hill side is the best situation for a grove. 



Prince Belmonte's grove. — Some years ago the Italian Alpine Club 

 agreed that it would be greatly to the advantage of South Italy, and 

 would add materially to the attractions of the mountain scenery, if the 

 Apennines, which are now for the most part quite bare, could be made 

 to grow trees such as there is every reason to believe that they did in 

 more ancient times. They determined to consult Signor Savastano, the 

 professor of arboriculture in the school of agriculture at Portici near 

 Naples, who gave it as his opinion that the mountains where the lentisk 

 and the myrtle grow freely enough could be utilised to produce the 

 more remunerative carob. To the obvious advantage of re ifforesting the 

 mountains, and thus adding to the rainfall, would be added to the pro- 

 duction of a valuable crop where nothing saleable had grown before. 



The great carob-growing districts of South Italy are in the Barx 

 region on the Adriatic coast, and quantities are exported annually to 



