parvaln for several hundred years. Later 

 : works be, 



-..idtislry, tlioiu'li su;ii>o-,ed to bo 



lili-.-ldvent - 



less impcr 



'IliBeut 



s of planting tun! o 



and tne methods of preserving tho fruit 

 ami manufacturing the oil. In time agri- 

 cultural societies and by 

 ior.s nnil r L f\ a certain 

 amountof eiiiiii..: : lie common 

 'who were careles-i In tlie propaga- 

 tion ami training ot tlie tree and propor- 

 ti.ii.nii-ly unclean ami lie..-', ueiit in the fabri- 

 cation ol the oil. Tne machinery of the 

 agricultural society st/11 wuvks so imper- 

 fectly in Franco and Fitly that there 

 ily exists ono association ot tlie kind 

 iv hundred found in the United 

 For this there are two reasons: 

 '.he peasantry or small asricn 

 st of them tumble to rend, and in all 

 branches of land culture, and especially a 

 branch of it eo nncicnt as that cf the 

 niivc. they have Inherited a largo 

 it of practical knowledge which. 



- for all their ordinary needs. 

 WHI;I:E THE oi.rvE allows. 



This brief sketch of the olive has been 



that the respect with which it lias 



ircaled from tin- most, am-iont times 



e understood. This regard, sublimed 



..-ncratioM.it C.T.I, a never ha-. 



1 been of the greatest praciienl 

 use to maunlnd, for tlio ancients venerated 

 r instance, the sun, in propor- 

 the benefit which they derived from 

 Tho olive was then, as it is .MOW, 

 -jefactor of the world, and was BO 

 recognized. Its natural history is a matter 

 is importance to the cultivator in C'ali- 

 It will suffice on this branch of 

 i-ject to >'iy that all the known species 

 ml olives came from some wild 

 v, probably from more than one, 

 identity, although it has been exten- 

 Jisctissed, has not yet been decided. 

 v in regard to its localities, a subject 

 to be more fully treated hereafter. It 

 in twelve departments of France. 

 :.ng Corsica, these extending along 

 iliterruncan, from Italy to Spain, 

 rtncrn point of successful culture 

 i:i Ardoche, some sixty or seventy 

 from the sen const. It is fonr.d In 

 every part of Spain, except In the 

 provinces and elsewhere at the high- 

 est altitudes. It grows in all the northern 

 of Africa, where its culture is pre- 



'1'hu olives in A h;ier are remaik- 

 no, and there are some writers who, 



observing this fact, the favorable nature 

 of tlie climate, the antiquity of the culture 



e prevalence of several species of 



wild olive, think it to.be tho locality of its 



origin and the point \rhere it was dissem- 



about the Mfcu.tc-rranean. This 



bonor is, however, disputed in behalf of 



l j alestine and some locality In the 



>.irhood of the Tigris and Euphrates. 



wild olive still abounds lit some parts 

 of India and China, as well a in several 

 other countries, where it is is still culti- 

 vated, it ia obvious that the task of tho 

 naturalist is difficult. The olive flourishes 



vsia. Minor, except in the most ele- 

 vated regions, in Southern Russia, in nearly 

 all European Turkey, with, tho countries 

 adjoining which were formerly dependen- 



n all Itnly, including Sicily and 

 Sardinia, and In some parts of Asia and 

 Africa not mentioned. 



WILL IT CII'.OW IS CAUFOnNIA? 



The citizen of California who travels ir 

 Italy and the south ef France cannot fail 

 to remark the similarity of Boil, climate. 

 ! mation ot ground and general atmos- 

 eonditions to those to which he has 

 been accustomed on the Pacific coast. In 

 the vicinity of Marseilles the summer is 

 almost absolutely rainless, nolle tho winter 

 r o copious. Tho heat of midsummer 

 Is warm, but generally tempered by sea 

 windi. At Cannes, Grasse and Nice, further 

 eastward and not far from the line of Italy, 

 the atmospheric conditions re similar. The 

 summers are warm alter the same manner. 

 Frosts in the valleys are rarely known, but 

 occasionally on the hillsides, with 

 snow far below tho lino to which the olive 

 -, The valleys are generally occupied 

 for the sake of economy merely by vine- 

 frnitorchards, and gardens, while the 

 of the hills and mountains are cov- 

 ered with olive tree?. Their number is be- 

 wildering. Nice is situated in a sort of 

 ,.- tho slopes are visible on all 

 .HO general is the culture that in all 

 .road area scarcely anything else can 

 .n but the pale gieen of the olive. 

 :he rocks and earth are concealed 

 and no other trees are in sight, except pos- 

 sibly a ragged row of small pines thai 

 cr-v,vns the far off forest of some higher o'c- 

 1. A person who had the patience and 

 a glass sufficiently powerful could, v. 

 doubt, count 00,000 olive trees fr: 



hotel window within a slightly irregular, it , -h'rlst Most of those nijoul Nice ex- 

 w hose longest radius would be flltnj , years while hundreds, pronaWs 



verything that grows at Nieo would thousands exceed :!OO. One was pointed 

 grow In California, not excepting the bam- ont to iro at tho nurjery of the Pro, 

 boo.which appears to flourish, and the date- i/uioii at tho villa Josephine n; ,.i 

 [aim, which grows well aud makes a hand- on which the commissary of tho Spanish 

 some ornament without coming to fri'it. army, more than a thousand years ago, 

 The fruits ot California, while having a hung' the beef that was to be issued as 

 trifle less caaraoter, are much larger, finer ra .j ns to the troops. The special branch 

 and cheaper t,- 'lorod in the mar- u, w-hich tradition assigned tho honor had 



its of Nice. The melons seen in the San to be removed thirty yeftrs ago, but the 

 -rannsco market are incomparably supe- p ia.-c where it joined tho main tree is still 

 rior. A blight that has come in probably indicated. The other trees in the same 

 with age and a failure to renew the stool orchard which covers an exitent of several 

 raly often rests on everything, ft 



deficiency of rain covering a period of teri 

 or fifteen years, a thing impossible in Cali- 

 fornia, has aggravated the disorders iri 

 weakening the vines and olive trees, and 

 rendering them more vulnerable to the at- 

 tacks of insects. Irrigation is everywhere! 

 practiced. The soil is not good, except in 

 certain very limited localities, and requires 

 constant manuring. It is not the fertility 

 of the region, but the softness and uni- 

 formity of the climate, that has rendered it 

 so favorable for several hundred years for 

 the culture of fruits and plants that are a 

 little more than semi-tropical. What the 

 original trees were before they gave place 

 to the olive some hundreds of years ago 

 cannot now be determined with exactness, 

 but from specimens that remain in odd 

 nooks and corners on tho hillsides near 

 Nice, and in larger numbers along the lit- 

 toral towards Cannes on ono side and 

 Monaco on tne other, they could have com- 

 prised little more than scrub oaks and pines 

 that were never either large or healthy. 

 The presence of pine always indicates a 

 soil either almost barren or only moder- 

 ately productive, a character borne out in 

 this locality by the oaks and other kinds of 

 arboreal vegetation associated with it. 



CLIMATIC CONDITIONS. 



Tho climate along tho western coast oi 

 Italy is like that of much of California in 

 general respects. It is equable, and the 

 summers along tho coast are rainless, or 

 nearly so. At Naples it never rains during 

 the summer, though there are occasional 

 storms aboutVenivius. Almost nothing grows 

 In Italy from Veutiuiiglla, on the French 

 border, to the straits that separate Sicily 

 from the mainland, that will not grow in 

 California. It follows that as the olive ia 

 successfully cultivated in all this region, in 

 portions of which there are occasional frosts 

 and snows, that it bo cultivated equally 

 well on many parts of the Pacific coast; In 

 how many localities time can only deter- 

 mine. The question of soil, as will be 

 shown hereafter, is of secondary impor- 

 tance. Given the requisite amount of heat 

 and moisture and there are few soils so bar- 

 ren that tlie olive will not flourish in them 

 when rooted. There are great areas of 

 country in California, notably some of the 

 hilh about San Francisco bay, about Monte- 

 rey bay, along the foothills of the Sierra, 

 and at different points along nearly the en- 

 tire length of the Coast Range, which are 

 grazed by sheep or left simply to the wild 

 flowers and scanty grasses that come with 

 the winter rains. 'In all these, judging 

 by the many unpropitlous localities In 

 whioh I have seen the olive growing, all 

 useful species of it, or as many as wore 

 desired, could be reared with profit. Nor 

 are the peculiarities of soil and climate in 

 Algiers, Syria or Turkey in Europe so very 

 different from those of California that they 

 need suggest difficulties. In all Of them 

 there is no rain, r-r scarcely any. In the 

 summer. The summer Is, If anything, a 

 livllo too warm, and in the Atlas mountains 

 and oilier portions of the countries men- 

 tioned there arejoccasloual frosts and snows. 



;.;VITT. 



No limit to the life of the olivo Is known. 

 Some olives of Ephesus and Smyrna are 

 older than the Turkish invasions of Europe. 

 In 1867 Algiers sent to the Paris Exposi- 

 tions specimens of a tree more than a 

 thousand years old. There are many olive 

 trees in the south of France which, wtth- 



A tree of such endurance, 

 allow itself to be mutilate* 



hundred acres, have an age of irom 150 to 

 300 years, 

 which will 



past recognition, whose stems will live am 

 send forth new shoots and a now trunl 

 here the old trunk has been broken off by 

 a storm just above the soil, which will send 

 up from tho same roots six or eight shoots,- 

 eccli >!' which becomes In a few years a 

 scpaijate tree, which will allow itself to be 

 ,<:;ed by flips, twigs, shoots, or seg- 

 ir.enp of branches, and planted or thrust 

 intcflho ground in any fashion, which will 

 flourish in the most ungrateful 

 .ust needs have a marvelous vitality 

 fK> acquire sucn a great age, aud should 

 have its vitality reckoned as one of 

 tho most important elements of its worth 

 r.-.id value. It does not follow that because 

 the tree has these qualities it should be 

 abused and neglected, but It should all tho 

 more bo treated with respect and tender 

 care, that its product may be increased and 

 that it may be transmitted as a precious 

 heritage to future generations. 



IN I-OOR sn: 



This will be better understood by some 

 description of the olive as I have seen it 

 crowing about Nice, in the vicinity of 

 Grasse. along the littoral between Marseilles 

 and Nice, and along the Riviera betwtwu 

 Monaco and Genoa. Ail this region may be 

 considered as the home of the olive. Nearly 

 allot tho distance after passing Cannes is a 

 mountain slope, coming close to tho sea- 

 shore, and EO steep that it seems to the 

 traveler as if tliere was constant danger 

 that it would slide dov. n and carry the rail- 

 road with it into the Mediterranean. Oc- 

 casionally there is a tract of level ground a 

 few miles in extent, but lor most of the 

 distance there is a constant' succession of 

 hort valleys and sharp spurs running 

 teeply up till they merge in the summit of 

 he mountain. The road runs across the 

 arrow valleys and through tho mountain 

 purs. Tho reader will understand the 

 ature cf ttio country better when told that 

 n passing tho 1'JO or 130 miles between 

 \"ice and Genoa the train traverses more 

 ban 100 tunnels, and nearly as many 

 more between Genoa and Pisa, whore the 

 .istance is leas. The small valleys arc sur- 

 cndered to vineyards and orchards, and 

 he olive is everywhere driven to the hills, 

 vhere It thrives according to elevation and 

 ichessof soil. The olivo trees north imd 

 vest of Marseilles, and east of it as Jir 

 as Cannes, or to nearly that point, ar 

 mall, rarely exceeding fiftieen or twenty 

 eet in height. Then they change entirely, 

 often reaching forty or more feet in heicht, 

 and attaining at the base a circumference 

 of four or five. The soil also changes, but 

 not apparently for the better, the improve- 

 ment in tho character of the olive being 

 due to the absence of the mistral or other 

 wind of deleterious influence, and a climate 

 generally far more propituous. 



SHOWING UNDER ADVERSE CIRCUMSTANCES. 



Grasse Is at the head of a valley about 

 t<v,'-nty miles north of Cannes. Its chief 

 industries for the' last hundred years 

 have been tho cultivation of flowers 

 for their oils and essences, and the 

 manufacture of olive oil. The last 

 has been almost paralyzed for some years 

 te the devastation of the ily and worm 

 irhe trees are old, and the shape in which 

 ftiey are seen and the positions in which 

 tbey are placed show under what extreme 

 privations the olive i_We toroaintalnjts 

 existence. 



out doubt, antedate the Saracen invasi -- - gomoUmes u ia 8ecn standing at 



Among mn.ny that may be named Is the /*! som ' UuU it 



celebrated tree of Beaulieu which was tbttop o^a ny * ^ ^^ 



!^r ".!' rclcumfJrenceT^ |l ST Sometime, it ?s dead, except a strip 



base. It is the' ouly one m me region [ 

 which resisted the fearful hurricane of 

 15I(i,sinco which time its product of oil, | 

 which had in favorable years reached 300 

 pounds avoirdupois, has fallen below 200 

 pounds.' The hollow In the trunk is able 

 to contain twenty persons. Kvery summer 

 it was used by its proprietor as a family 

 dining and living room. The whole 

 family slept there, and even the horse had 

 corner to himself. The age of this tree Is 

 differently estimated, but cannot be less 

 than a thousand years, or as some think 

 2000. which is not impossible when we re- 

 member tne great age. of the o!i\ 



Mentioned in the New '! esta- 



of bark up one t 



jUargo and litu.thy top filled with fnut. 

 Sometlmus it is twisted and G narled so that 

 it has almost lost the appearance ot a tre". 

 Again there will be a large rift in the trunk, 

 through which one could pass with ease. 

 Now aud then there is a stump, from which 

 a new and healthy trunk has grown, and oc- 

 casionally half a dozun trunks form the 

 same roots, unlike the banyan, yet strongly 

 suggesting it. In all places the soil is thin, 

 but In some so full of bowlders, or so thinly 

 spread over the rocks, that the land in the 

 most barren parts of New England seems 

 fertile in comparison. It is land on which 

 th most persevering sheep would find it 

 ,i obtaina scanty si- 'leticr- 



J simply by 



