CROPS. Wheat is raised over all the Kingdom. Italy is favored above most countries by eli• matie conditions, and is comparable to California in the great range of crops that can he grown. including both temperate-zone and tropical va rieties. Like Florida. its peninsular position gives it the advantage of an insular climate, and though it is in a more northern latitude (Naples being on the same parallel with New York). it is not subject to severe freezes such as sometimes occur in Florida, the Alps to the north pro tecting, it from the southward sweep of cold northern winds. • From the agricultural table appended it will be seen that the recent wheat production has fallen somewhat below the average for earlier years. The production does not meet the domestic demand, and annual importations are necessary. Corn is also raised throughout the Kingdom, the two most important districts being the provinces of Milan and Ca serta, each producing an average annual crop of about •.200,000 bushels. The other important provinces arc Brescia, Cremona, Treviso, and Padua. This crop also scarcely holds its own as compared with earlier years, and does not supply the home consumption. necessitating importations. The cultivation of rice, the subtropical grain which is raised in Italy for export as well as for home consumption, is con stantly diminishing owing to competition of other countries, as will be seen in the table given below. Rice is raised principally in Lombardy, Piedmont, Venetia, and Emilia. Oats, barley, and rye are also important cereal crops. Potatoes, turnips, beet-root, and sugar-beet are of consid erable importance. The production of hay, both from the natural grass meadows and the various cultivated varieties, is very extensive. Some hemp and flax are grown, but cotton cultivation Las been reduced to insignificance.
In the agricultural economy of Italy, fruit plays a more important part than cereals. The vine crop alone has an annual value of about $150,000,000, only $20,000,000 less than the wheat crop. The Government is spending large sums of money in combating the phylloxera and maintaining schools for teaching the art of wine making. The vine is grown all over the country,
especially in the provinces of Bari. Alessandria. Lecce, Foggia, Rome, Catania, and Florence. The wines of Italy are of many kinds, but. owing to the defective methods of preparing them, they deteriorate with age and are to a great extent unfit for export. The best-known wines are the Marsala of Sicily, the Chianti of Tuscany, and the Asti of Piedmont. These are quite largely exported. The olive-tree thrives best in Liguria and throughout Central and Southern Italy, as well as on the islands of Sardinia and Sicily. It occupies an area nearly one-third as large as that under the vine.
Luxuriant groves of orange and lemon delight the eye of the traveler in Sicily and Sardinia, adorn the coasts of Liguria, and thrive in the coast provinces of Southern Italy. The prov inces of Messina, Palermo, Catania, Syra cuse, Trapani, Calabria, Salerno, Catanzaro, Foggia, Caserta, and Naples are famous for the delicious fruit they produce. Italy had more than 16,000,000 orange and lemon trees at the end of the nineteenth century—nearly twice the number in the State of California. Almonds are grown in Southern and insular Italy, and other fruits, such as figs, dates, melons. and pistachio nuts, are produced in large quantities and ex ported. Silk culture is no less prominent, the annual yield of raw silk being valued in 1S99 at $32.350,000, giving Italy first place in Europe as a raw silk producer, and second only to China and Japan in the world. Its output makes up 80 per cent. of the total European production and nearly one-fifth of the world's product. Silk worms are raised chiefly in Northern and Middle Italy. The cultivation of mulberry-trees is ex tensive, having developed in connection with the silk industry. The following table shows the fluctuations in the chief crops during the last three decades of the nineteenth century: output for the years 1S79-S3 having been 37, 766.000 hundred, and the yield in 1900, 38,520.000 hundred.