54 One Thousand Questions in Agriculture 



whether they were worth keeping at all, because grafting on the 

 kind of growth which you describe would be unlikely to yield satis- 

 factory tree forms, though you might get a good deal of fruit from 

 them. 



Olives from Cuttings. 



/ have tzvo choice olive trees on my place. I am anxious to get trees 

 from these old ones and do not knozv how to go about it. Can I grow 

 the yonng trees by using cuttings or slips from these old trees? If so, 

 zvhen is the proper time to select the cuttings, and how should they be 

 planted? 



Take cuttings of old wood, one-half or three-quarters of an 

 inch in diameter, about ten inches long, and plant them about three- 

 quarters of their length in a sandy loam soil in a row so water can 

 be run alongside as may be necessary to keep the soil moist but 

 not too wet. Such dormant cuttings can be put in when the soil 

 begins to warm up with the spring sunshine. They can be put in 

 the places where you desire them to grow in one or two years. 

 Olives, like other evergreen trees, should be transplanted in the 

 spring when there is heat enough to induce them to take hold at 

 once in their new places, and not during the winter when dormant 

 deciduous trees are best transplanted. 



Water and Frost. 



/ have in mind two pieces of land well adapted to citrus culture. 

 Both have the same elevation, soil, climate and water conditions, except 

 that one piece is a mile of the Kaweah river, while the other is four or 

 five miles distant. In case of a frost, all conditions being about the same, 

 ivliich piece zvould you consider to be liable to suffer the more? In the 

 heavy frost of last December, zvhile neither sustained any great damage, 

 that portion of the ground nearer the river seemed to sustain the less. 

 Is this correct in theory? The Kaweah river at this point is a good- 

 sized stream of rapidly flowing water. 



The land near the river, conditions of elevation being similar, 

 would be less liable to frost. There are a good many instances 

 where the presence of a considerable body of water prevents the 

 lowering of the temperature of the air immediately adjacent. It is 

 so at various points along the Sacramento river, and it is recog- 

 nized as a general principle that bodies of water exert a warming 

 influence upon their immediate environment even in regions with a 

 hard winter. How much it may count for must be determined by 

 taking other conditions into the account also. 



Thinning Oranges. 



Is it advisable to thin fruit on young citrus trees? Our trees have 

 been bearing about three years, but they are still small trees. The oranges 

 and grape fruit ripen zvell and are large and of excellent quality, but the 

 trees seem overloaded. 



