The Lexington intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1901-1949, 1904-01-30
l VEGETATION.
The Interesting Notes of a Nature
Loving Tourist.

1t seemed to me that the poets
Of the south have exaggerated the
beauty Of the olive tree, says a
writer for the Conservator. In
deed, ! saw no beauty in it at all.
The leaves look as if they had
been blanched by sulphur, and the
trunks of the stumbling older
trees as if theyhaa been hacked up
with an ak. The younger trees
are more graceful, but don't APP
peal to the sympathies of one
from the land of shapely spruce
and pines, the ash, the maple and
the elm. The splayed and yaw-
ing fragments of an old olive
trunk have an uncannylook, as of
some nightmarish Dore illustra-
ton in Dante's "Inferno." The
only lemon groves / could set my
eyes on north of Naples were one
or two at Cap d'Antibes, and two
or three near Mentone. At File
sole there was a garden fun of
lemons grown in big terra Gotta
tubs. The oranges of the Riviera
are wretched, all the best fruit,
heavy and sweet juice, coming
from Spain, Sicily and Jaffa. The
fragments at Monte Carlo are full
of the fragrant pittosorums.
They scent the air around with the
very perfume of the orange bios.
som, only it is not at all overpow-
ering or Extensively sweet, but
delicate and sense-quickening,
like watts of fresh frosty air.
We are so used to thinking Of
the hawthorne hedge as a feature
of English landscape that l dare
say it will surprise many to be
told that the biancaspina is al
most as common in the Pisan plain
and in parts of southern Italy-es-
pecially along railway banks-as
1t is in England.
Everywhere in Italy and France
the trees are pitifully mutilated.
Where they are allowed to grow
to their natural height-as they
sometimes are on the Italian coast
II observed they lean from the
southwest, as they do all over
America. OF course, where silk
worm culture is carried on, as be-
tween Milan and Como, it is nee
essary that the mulberry trees be
trained low for convenience in the
picking of larvaes. Where grapes
are grown it is hard to tell why
living saplings are universally
planted and trimmed down as sup
port for the vines, unless it is that
ground could not be spared for
coppices or that the fruit ripens
best in partial shade. In France
and Germany the vines are simply
tied to upright sticks. Descrip-
tions of the vine in Italy by tour
lists are always vague and senti-
mental, and / had wondered how
in the world grapes could ripen in
the shade Of large trees. 4 glance
explained all; the trees turned out
to be no taller than the hop poles,
and so trimmed to a few horizon
tai branches trained lengthwise of
the row that the shading was re-
duced to a minimum. The vines
hung in loops or festOons from
sapling to sapling, as if taking
hold of hands. On the foothills
south Of the Campagna travellers
may see grape vines grownaround
a bunch of dead poles tied together
wigwam fashion at the top. The
sapling trees are rarely more than
Is feet high, generally not SO
much. In one region only, and
that near Naples, did ! see the
vines trained on tolerably large
trees, swinging from bole to bole,
like spider webs. That the hotter
sun does not n~ecessitate this | dis
covered by the vineyards on the
fiery southern slope of Yesuvius,
which are trained low and have
scarcely any shade.
Moving a Church.