OLIVES. 203 



for daily use in the household, for medicinal purposes, in 

 the various arts. There is no other oil that is as highly 

 esteemed for the same uses, and when we consider that it 

 retails in this country at one dollar a quart flask, and 

 that an acre of olive trees in full bearing will average 

 seven hundred and fifty quarts, a certain profit is self- 

 evident. 



In 1884 the United States paid for imported olives, one 

 hundred arid twenty-seven thousand one hundred dollars ; 

 why should we not keep this money in our own pockets? 



And in addition to the yield of oil there is the pickled 

 olive ; the same fruit picked when half ripe, steeped in an 

 alkaline solution to extract a part of its bitterness, then 

 washed in fresh water, and finally bottled with salt and 

 water, to which fennel or some other aromatic herb is added. 

 The taste for the pickled olive is an acquired but still an 

 extensive one, and the demand is large ; it might just as 

 well be supplied by home product as to be imported. 



The olive does not require rich land, too much fertiliz- 

 ing improves neither the tree nor the fruit, hence it is one 

 of the cheapest of all fruits to raise; and not alone for 

 this reason, but also because the cultivation of the ground 

 set in olives, does not at all injure or retard it. Peach or 

 pear trees, grape-vines, corn, vegetables, all can be grown 

 continuously in the olive orchard, rather to its advantage 

 than otherwise. 



Another point in its favor is the ease with which it is 

 propagated ; suckers rise in abundance from the roots of 

 the older trees, and these, transplanted, become trees in 

 their turn. The seed is frequently planted, and some claim 

 that this is the best mode of propagation ; cuttings from 

 the olive, however, take root so readily that this is the 

 usual method followed to obtain young trees. 



A rather odd circumstance is related which strikingly 



