California Agriculturist and Live Stock Journal. 



a 



its moral tone and anti-humbug sentimeuta, 

 and take jileasure iu adding my name to the 

 list another year." 



Another subscriber, Mr. W. E. Cooley, a 

 farmer near Los Angelea, sends some new 

 names and says ; "I am hoping to give your 

 paper a start in this vicinity another year." 



We have many good friends amongst our 

 subscribers who are practical, earnest men 

 and women, and who are working to ad- 

 vance the interests of the Aoricultukist. 

 We need the assistance of all, for it is slow 

 work to build up a paper on its merits alone, 

 without the aid of every one who can lend a 

 helping baud. Papers that are run in the 

 interest of railroads, land monopolies and 

 corporations, and cater to any interest that 

 ©fl'ers pay, soon gain large circulations and 

 are so upheld that success comes without a 

 struggle. But a paper that hesitates not to 

 attack any evil, and is conducted on principle, 

 and is devoted singly to the greatest good of 

 the honest portion of the community, does 

 have a hard row to hoe, and if it cannot live 

 and be made successful by the friends of 

 rightful progress, it stands no show whatever. 

 We have often said that we would sooner fail 

 in a good cause than succeed in a bad one, 

 but we rejoice that we are succeeding in a 

 good cause, and owe much of that success to 

 the good will and efforts of good people, our 

 friends. 



FATTENING BEEF-CATTLE FOR 

 MARKET. 



Last month we gave an account of A. N. 

 Story's experience iu fattening cattle on his 

 farm. We then stated that this Spring his 

 cattle would not bring the usual price — 10 to 12 

 cents on foot — owing to an abundance of good 

 feed and fat beef elsewhere. He has brought 

 us an account of fifty head, sold at 7 cents on 

 foot. He never before got less than IU cents 

 on foot for such beef at this season of the 

 year. But notwithstanding the low price of 

 beef this excejitional year, figures will show 

 that Mr. Story is ahead on the enterprise. 

 For the fifty head of cattle, the price paid, 

 reckoning all losses out, did not exceed 

 twenty dollars per head, or $1,000. The cat- 

 tle, when fattened, averaged 700 pounds each, 

 at 7 cents, $4!) per head, or $2,450, which left 

 $1,450 to pay for feeding. Mr. Story's farm 

 of about 380 acres will fatten 100 head a year, 

 besides raising other stock enough, with a di- 

 versity of products, to pay running expenses. 

 At 7 cents this would be $2,900 a year income. 

 But 11 cents has heretofore been the average 

 price of his fat cattle iu the Spring. Reck- 

 oning them at 10 cents and the weight at 700 

 pounds, 100 head fattened each year, aud the 

 figures will stand thus : 100 head cost $20 

 each— $2,000 ; 100 head bring $70 each— 

 $7,000 ; increase in value — $5,000. We have 

 reckoned no interest on money invested, nor 

 Mr. Story's time, as every farmer has to put 

 in his own time somehow. The way he man- 

 ages, his expense for hired help is not heavy. 

 Mr. Story always has hay or grain to sell, 

 and is not confined altogether for resources 

 to his cattle. Let any farmer reckon for him- 

 self, and he will see that raising and fatten- 

 ing stock, in connection with hay and grain 

 fanning, will pay. 



fym^mitntt. 



The Cultivation of the Olive in Cali- 

 fornia. 



BY JOHN D. SCOTT, M. D. 



M — 



Q|j7r)s. Aonicui/TUEisT : The visitor to this 

 Jjl. State is as much astonished as delighted 

 (y^ to Bee the groves of evergreen olive 

 o^ trees in and about the old missions so 

 common in California. The cultivation of 

 this beautiful and valuable tree has ever been 

 associated in his mind with the siinny vales 

 of France and the balmy airs of Italy. He 

 forgets for a moment that the great Pacific 

 Ocean Stream, bubbling Tip from the Torrid 

 zone and laving and warming these AVestern 

 shores, is doing for us what the Gulf Stream 

 in the East, flowing across the Atlantic, does 

 for Western Europe. It is well known that 

 whilst England, France, Portugal .and Spain 

 are basking in warm sunshine. Nova Scotia, 

 New Brunswick .and the New England States, 

 in the same latitudes, are shiveriug iu the 

 frigid grasp of Winter. A similar cause pro- 

 duces the same efTect here. Whilst we are 

 enjoying an Italian climate, our minister to 

 China writes us that the denizens of the so- 

 called Flowery Kingdom are bound fast in the 

 icy fetters of Winter. It seems, then, to be 

 one of the great climatic laws of our globe 

 that the isothermal lines shall rise to very 

 high latitudes on the Western borders of the 

 two great continents, whilst they fall very 

 low on the Eastern, giving a mild and genial 

 climate to Western Europe and Western Amer- 

 ica, and a frozen one to Eastern America and 

 Eastern Asia. 



These trees were planted here by the Jesuit 

 Fathers over three quarters of a century ago. 

 Whilst Europe was being bathed in the blsod 

 of unholy and mad ambition, these noble, 

 self-sacrificing men, tossed by the stormy 

 waves of two oceans, or daring the untried 

 perils of a trackless continent, were here in 

 these Western wilds endeavoring to establish 

 the Kingdom of the Prince of Peace — their 

 sword the Word of God, their Stand.ard the 

 Cross. What more appropriate selection 

 could they have made from the vegetable 

 kingdom to remind them of their own native 

 Italy, 



" Land of arts nnd arniB, 

 Where Nntiire spreads her rit-hest charms," 



than the olive? — first harbinger of dry land 

 at the Deluge, and ever after deemed the em- 

 blem of peace. Whilst the stately monu- 

 ments of conquerors and kings will crumble 

 into dust, the olive alone, ever self-producing 

 and self-peqietuating, which these Pioneer 

 Fathers first planted , hero will keep their 

 names and unselfish deeds as green in the 

 memories of men as the emerald leaves upon 

 its own boughs. The simple children of 

 forest and plain whom they were accustomed 

 to gather around their holy altars for morn- 

 ing and evening worship, are scattered and 

 gone ; the mission villages they established are 

 lading into the dim twilight of historj', and 

 even the stately temples of God, so sacredly 

 cherished and so elaborately adorned with 

 the painted scenes of the Apostolic age, are 

 fast crumbling into the dust wlicucc they 



arose. But the olive will never die. Having 

 found a soil as congenial, aud a climate and 

 skies as warm and beautiful, as ever blessed 

 its native Italy, it will go on increasing in 

 numbers and usefulness until the teeming 

 millions of the Pacific shall rise up and call 

 its first propagators "blessed." 



There are many hundreds of these trees 

 now flourishing and in full bearing in the 

 various missions in this State. They have 

 proved hardy and productive, so that their 

 cultivation here is not a matter of venture or 

 experiment. If the recommendation was now 

 first made to plant the olive — if we were called 

 on to send to France or Italy for our first 

 trees, at great risk and expense, to enter upon 

 an uncertain aud untried business, there 

 would be great reason for hesitating in follow- 

 ing the advice. But, as we have indicated 

 above, all these experiments have been made 

 for us, and they have j^roved eminently suc- 

 cessful. The trees grow here thriftily, bear 

 abundantly, and many hundreds of gallons 

 of oil are profitably manufactured from them 

 yearly. 



In addition to its commercial, the Olive has 

 an ornamental value. Its perpetual verdure 

 is most grateful to the eye, its shade is dense 

 and cooling, aud when loaded with its dark 

 purple berries, it presents the appearance of 

 millions of jets set in oceans of emer.ild green. 



The trees are easily, cheaply and rapidly 

 propagated by pieces of the roots, suckers, 

 seeds, or cuttings. The latter mode is most 

 generally adopted. A trench is dug six or 

 eight inches deep, and the soil thrown out on 

 one side. On this inclined bank cuttings 

 about a foot long and from one to one and a 

 half inches in diameter, are laid about afoot 

 apart. The ditch is now fiUed up and the 

 soil drawn up to near the top of the cuttings. 

 But one stem is permitted to grow. The soil 

 is kept loose about the young trees and free 

 from weeds. Thej' are watered occasionally, 

 and at three years old they are ready for the 

 orahard. Their distance apart is 3G feet in 

 light, hilly soil ; in rich soil, 48 feet. Vegetables, 

 corn, beans, and other light crops may be cul- 

 tivated in the inter-spaces to help to pay ex- 

 penses until the olives come into full bearing. 

 They begin to bear here in the sixth year, 

 sometimes earlier, and the fruit maj' be pro- 

 fitably gathered aud couverted into oil about 

 the tenth or twelfth year. 



Would it not be advisable for our fruit-cul- 

 turists, in setting out orchards, to give an 

 olive tree every fourth space? WTien the 

 short-lived trees shall have perished, the olive 

 will be in full bearing, and will constitute an 

 inheritance of incalculable value. A full- 

 grown tree produces from 50 to 75 gallons of 

 oil annually, which at $4.50 per gallon would 

 far outstrip in value any other fruit tree — the 

 far-famed Los Angeles oraugo not excepted. 

 Some exceptional trees have been known to 

 yield 300 galhms each in a yeai', which would 

 be worth more than the whole annual product 

 of some farms that we are acquainted with. 



As the oil contains the same principles as 

 fresh butter — oUin uud )nariffirin — its universal 

 use in the south of Eurojie, in all culinary 

 preparations, is at once obvious. The peojilo 

 there use it iu the thousands of ways iu which 

 we hero use pork, bacon, lard and butter. 



