When one goes to Sicily to look at the agriculture it is this region that one sees first. During my first day in Palermo I drove through miles of these magnificent fruit farms, all laid out in the most splendid style, surrounded by high stone walls, the entrance guarded by heavy iron gates, and provided with extensive works for supplying constant streams of water to the growing fruit. The whole country, which is dotted with beautiful villas and winter palaces, is less like a series of fruit farms than it is like one vast park. Here the fruit ripens practically the whole year round. The trees are heavy all winter with growing fruit, and one can wander for hours through a forest of lemon and orange trees so closely crowded together that the keen rays of the southern sun can scarcely penetrate their foliage. Palermo, however, like many other European cities in which the masses of the people are just now emerging out of the older civilization into the newer modern life, is divided into an old and a new city. There is the northern end, with broad streets and handsome villas, which the people call the "English Garden." This is the new city and the quarter of the wealthy classes. Then at the southern end there is the old city, with crowded, narrow and often miserably dirty streets, which is the home of the poorer class. After visiting one or two of the estates in the suburbs at the northern end of the city, I determined to see some of the truck farms of the smaller farmers which I had heard were located at the south end of the city. I made up my mind, also, if possible, to get out into the country, into the wilder and less settled regions, where I could plainly see from my hotel window the olive groves creeping up the steep mountainside and almost visibly searching out the crevices and sheltered places on the steep slopes in search of water, which is the one missing ingredient in the soil and climate of this southern country.