Among fruit-trees, the fig, the vine, the apple, apricot, peach, almond, and prickly pear, are the most common. Walnuts mid chest nuts are only met with in some places. Oraoges, lemons, and citron i are cultivated chiefly in the southern districts of Iglosia and Villa Cidro, and near Sassari, but are not held in great esteem. Date-trees grow on the Campidano, and some of the produce is gathered and sold, but it is not of a good quality.
Vegetables are fine and plentiful; peas and cabbage grow wild in the greatest luxuriance, and the asparagus of the hedges is abundant in the markets in March and April. Celery and tomatas are large and well flavoured. The 'torso; a kind of turnip-cabbage, grows to a gigantic size, weighing without the leaves 8 lbs. or 10 lbs. Saffron is cultivated, and is much need io cookery.
The vine is extensively cultivated, both soil and climate being highly favourable to it ; and though the process of making wino is still very imperfect, Sardinia produces some excellent wines. The • Male/tele, or malmsey wino of Quarto, Cagliari, Bose, and Soreo, the muscat wine of Alshero. the red wino of Alghero and Oristano, and the wines of the Cawpidsno, are much esteemed. The natives in general make considerable use of wine. Common white wines are made near &mail and Terralba, and also In the Campidano.
There are several extensive olive-grounds. The beet olives are those of Swami. Inferior oil is produced from the Gjfiestra, or wild olive, which, with that made from the Lentiscus, serves the peasants for bureiug.
Corn is the principal article of export. The greater part of the wheat raised In Sardinia is of a superior though soft kind called triguo; It will keep good only eighteen or twenty months; it is sowed in November and December, nod reaped in June. In seasons of abundant harvest about 400,000 starelli (11 bushels each) are exported. The barley is inferior in quality as compared with the wheat; about 200,000 atarelli are exported. Maize, though it thrives well, is not very exten: sive]. grown. One hundred thousand gamin of beans, 200,000 starelh of pjes, and 1000 starelli of lentils, are also exported annually.
Cheese is a great object of rural economy ; it is made chiefly from sheep and goats' milk, and being steeped in brine, it has a salt bitter taste. A treat quantity is shipped for Naples, where It is in great demand, being much used when grated to season maccaroni. Little
butter is made, as the treatment of cows is not well understood, and fodder is seam& Salt is a monopoly of tho government, and a profitable branch of the royal reeenne, the continental states of the house of Savoy being supplied entirely from Sardinia. Sweden and other states take many cargoes of salt from Sardinia. The salterns, both natural and artificial, are round the Gulf of Cagliari. at Oristano, Terranova, and on the northern octant west of Porto Torres. The isalterns are worked by convicts sentenced to the galleys. Tobacco is also a royal monopoly. This plant, which was Introduced in 1714, thrives welL Flax Is cultivated, and used in the linen manufactories of the country. The finer sort of linen is made at Busachi. Wool is coarse; it is manu factured Into coarse cloth for the peasantry. Cotton grows very well in the Campideno. Madder grows wild, and is used by the peasents for dyeing their coarse cloth. Some rock-mosses are also gathered for dyeiog. Bullocks' hides, sheep and goat skins, and kid or lamb skins, are exported in great quantities. Leather is imported from Marseille and other places. Among the exports are—fox skins, martin skins, rabbit and hare skins. The forests abound with stags, small deer, wild boars, and mnfioni, or murvoni, a species of large sheep, clothed with hair instead of wooL The tunny fisheries on the north and west coasts are very produc tive. They are mostly in the hands of foreigners. The tunnies generally weigh from 100 lbe. to 300 lbs. each, but some of them are above S00 lbs. All the parts of the fish are turned to account ; most of them are salted and shipped to various ports of the Mediterranean, and • comparatively small proportion is used in the islaud. The fishery of anchovies and sardines, which once used to be very produc tive, is much fallen off. Coral is taken off the west and south coasts. This branch of industry is carried on by the Neapolitans and Genoese. Pearls of an inferior quality are obtained from the Pinna nobilis, which abounds in the shallow bays. The shell measures from 15 to 27 inches In length, and is sought chiefly for the tuft of silky hair, the Byssus of the ancients, which is attached to it. The filaments are of a glossy brown colour, about 8 inches iu length, and are easily spun into glovee, stockings, &c.