Girolamo Caruso

After spending some years in the army, first as a volunteer and later as commissioner of Military engineering, in 1864 he was appointed as teacher of agriculture at the agrarian provincial school of Corleone (Palermo), and its director until 1867, when he moved to Messina to teach at the Technical Institute.

In those years he devoted himself to some research on agriculture in Sicily (on the gommosis of citrus trees, on viticulture and vinification, on olive growing) and got a great success with his work L'industria dei cereali in Sicilia e le popolazioni che la esercitano (Palermo 1870);[1] in this book, besides describing the agrarian techniques and machines, there were useful suggestions.

In 1871, after winning a competitive examination for a professorship, he obtained the post as agronomy teacher (following Pietro Cuppari) and director of the Agrarian Institute at the University of Pisa, where he settled definitively; he had then different and important offices, above all by the Government.

[2] Thanks to his skilful guide, the Scuola Superiore di Agraria of Pisa became one of the most important institutes in its field and a pole of reference for Italian agriculture:[1] the pupils coming out from it, could apply, continue and extend, in Italy and abroad, the knowledges acquired and Caruso's works.

In 1873 he presented an important introductory report about I sistemi di amministrazione rurale e la questione sociale; in 1875 he founded the magazine L'agricoltura italiana, which he ran until 1922 and had the purpose of divulging the innovation in the agricultural field and forming modern agronomists.

His interest was also for the problems of a company structure and management, (with his Ricerche sull'ordinamento dell'azienda rurale, edited in Florence in 1894), and with the essay Sulla convenienza e sull'attuabilità del disegno di riforma agraria (in Atti della Accademia dei Georgofili, s. 4, Disp.

[1] His constant activity of research is testified by his several notes presented at Accademia dei Georgofili and the essays published on l'Agricoltura italiana about viticulture and vinification (in 1878, 1892 and 1898); forages (1891); manures (1889, 1890, 1906, 1909); parasites of plants (1888–90, 1894–1897, 1902, 1915); olive growing; mechanised agriculture (1876, 1883, 1897).

[1] His scientific activity is documented by more than a hundred important publications; most of them are included in Atti della Regia Accademia dei Georgofili, and, more specifically, in the valuable magazine "L'Agricoltura italiana", founded by him in 1875 and directed for the rest of his life.