iiu: the olive ana desire : >i It th 



Kreatest advantage. As to pro 

 using the seed, it Is mo or the' 



reasons given taau any other 

 tb objections to it of in extreme tardiness, 

 though important iu exhausted soils lize 

 those of the olive-growing regions or locali- 

 ties of France and Italy, may not apply to 

 ;lio virgin toil of California with, the same 

 force. 



TKKATMKN'T tN NU: 



Minute- rnts aro givn by writers lor the 

 .atment ttf the young trees in the nursery. 

 As the roots extend on effort snould be 

 IBade to give the stem shape by cutting off 

 the lateral branches. Though this is a kind 

 of restraint on the natural development of 

 the tree ft is necessary to permit as many as 

 possible to grow within a given space. If 

 this gentle pruning is postponed the tree 

 viil probably become twisted as it gels 

 older, a danger to which it n sufficiently 

 subjected from natural atmospheric causes. 

 The pruning, also, if performed when the 

 tree is quite young, is less likely to leave 

 wounds on the stems. The value of this 

 method has been proved by experiments 

 made by practical cultivators. During five 

 years that is the time, advised for the nur- 

 series of France and Italy the young tree.f 

 are pruned, kept straight by means of a 

 support, weeded and kept secure from injury 

 by animals. At the end of the fifth year it 

 will be time to determine the height at 

 which it is desired to beep the olive, the 

 trees ot moderate stature being generally 

 h v.tt hoarers. Still It is a question, of 

 soil and locality, of exposure to tho sun 



oinger from winds. If tho soils aro 

 deep and rich the young trees when trans- 

 planted should hiive from three feet four 

 to five feet in height; if for soils 



tid places exposed to t.'ie wind, three 

 feet four inches to four feet will be suffi- 

 cient. These figures may be varied by local 

 When tho soil is cultivated iho 

 trees should be higher than when it is occu- 

 pied with other crops. Tne height having 

 been decided on, it becomes necessary to 

 form the head by leaving six or eight 



ies so placed as lo oiler tun. greatest 

 surface to the eun. They have by turns 

 been given tho form of a pyramid, a fan, ft 

 ;i va*n formed on [he surface, of the 

 trunk bv a truncated cone hollow in the in- 

 Tiiis last mode of training tho 

 brandies is that which permits tho 

 trees to present the greatest surface 

 to the sun. All this cannot be done 

 in a year, but must be continued till tiie 

 tree is twelve years old, at which age it will 

 be ready to bo permanently placed in tho 

 orchard. All this may teem fatiguing 

 to an American f'urmer, and especially 

 one who is accustomed' to' the quickly re- 

 sponsive eoil and precocious climate of Cali- 

 fornia. He may and doubtless will be able 

 to anticipate thoss times anil processes, but 

 the rules given are those deduced from 

 many hundred years of experience, and they 

 refer, as the reader must never forget, to 

 the welfare of a tree whose life has no 

 known limit, and y/hich can, like tho soil, 

 be transmitted to gsntiations yet unborn. 

 The stalk is out off at thu desired height in 

 the spring. During the following summer 

 the lateral brunches develop other lateral 

 branches, and ere themselves suppressed 



ie main stem. This process is con- 

 tinnrd ccch year, care being always taken to 

 give the vigorous young branches tbatcome 

 out b".ow the point of suppression a general 

 tendency upwards. As to whether the time 

 of transplanting shall be a few years more 

 there seems to be a difference of 

 opinion among the authorities, which is 

 t of any great practical importance. The 

 ( ulif.Tiim cultivator will have to be guided 



own experience aud these genera! 

 intimations. It is generally thought that 



.1 ot the tree should be cut at the 



: transplanting, but if it has under- 



e training specified it will be neces- 

 sary to recommence the process. If the 



iiuting is slisrluly hastened the more 

 elaborate part of it will taKe place after- 

 wards. 



THE FREXOH METHOD. 



The French call an olive orchard an 

 When a new one is to be formed of 

 plants without any mixture of old or worn- 

 out trees, the ouestion arises whether th" 

 olive is to occupy tho ground excli, 

 or whether otbnr plants are to divide I'.ie 

 soil with it. The most common culture which 

 has been in times past mixed with that of 

 the olive has been the vine, but in person- 

 ally visaing ami having a general view of 

 the olive orchards De'wecu Mnrseillea and 

 Florence, a distance of ">00 or <!(!(> him- 1 

 dred miles, I luun bay thai I saw little on ' 



':nd bat theolives themselves. There 

 occasionally vineyards, small fruitsor 



i rops, but they were exceptional. 

 Ons reason doubtless was that the vineyards 

 in the region included have generally suc- 



il to the ph;, 'Hox'jra, aud another was 

 that the trees were usually on the hilis>;Jp 

 In_soil8 not_suiico -i-joise. Sy 



,'nrefi;l 



Clllliva 



will P r ' ven be 



most benef.r.c.i ;,, I , u olive 



when old isguuer.illy n spare-looking tree, 

 from having been prunod in th 

 shown. The branches arc few anJ do not 

 incline many degrees fr. 

 lar, which circumstance, with thu smallness 1 

 of the leaf, permits of a comparative 

 ohsirticled -passage of tho sun's rays. A 

 person may therefore cultivate an olive 

 prchan.l.aud while it is gradually matur- 

 ing, or while it is In full bearing, mav have 

 a vineyard in courl bearing or such other 

 crop as he finds it convenient to put upon 

 the soil, annual or otherwise. 



"!>' 



A regularity iu the olive orchard Is pleas- 

 ing to the eye, though dillicult to maintain 

 when the trees become asied. Ou level 

 1 a symmetry is possible that cannot 

 (easily be had on hillsides or where the con- 

 formation of the ground is otherwise con- 

 strained or peculiar. The height at wiftcli 

 the olives of a regioi: are to be main- 

 tained will decide their distance apart. 

 Tte trea boars according to its exposure U> 

 the suu aud is most fruitful on the sides 

 ' most exposed. It is therefore desirable 

 that after the spring equinox lias passed 

 the trees should not shade one another. 

 Some French agriculturist who has made a 

 very nice calculation has said that the trees 

 should be so far apart that no one of them 

 should be shaded by its neighbor next, 

 south on the 22J of .March. Without fol- 

 lowing this rulfl Into all the latitudes, in 

 which it finds a somewhat varied applica- 

 tion, it may bo said in a general way that 

 the mean distance between tho trees should 

 tie about their height. In the south of *\ 

 France, where the trees are small, a little 

 1 less than twenty feet ia deemed sufficient. 

 Where the trees grow taller the distance 

 should be greater. Cnto prescribed for an- 

 cient Italy twenty-five to thirty feet. Where 

 the trees are planted in terraces on a hill- 

 side with a fair southern exposure it may 

 be less. A very little thought on the part of 

 any one who plants olive trees will enaole 

 him to judge of the character of his own 

 ground, the side from which the trees will 

 have the most sun and the danger of their 

 shading one another. If he desires he can 

 plant closer, with a view to cutting out n 

 part if they promise to be too near together. 



HOW TO SET THEM OUT. 



The distance apart having been decided, 

 square or circular holes are dug about four 

 feet iu diameter and tiiree feet in depth to 



not really a thins 

 ee. The cuttinj of the 

 tree to rt'siruin its exuberance liaa -Vi 

 n.i and so . 

 ;diait of practical 



explanation in thoRO articles, nor is minute 



( the pro.'tt.v.'s h-.-re essential. 



H is dmiLtful if the general cultivator of 



.1 in V ranee and Italy, who has in- 

 herited his trcps an--! his knovrle'l^e, him- 

 self understands them, of the hundreds of 

 thousands of trees that I have thurf fnr 

 seen, comparatively few bore recent marks | 



ig of any kind. The general tend- 

 itncy in tho youiizer orchards was to let 

 them grow with the brauehei* sloping well 

 upward, to which end the lower branches 

 of the stem had loug before been removed. 

 In Corsica and In Algiers the trees are cut 

 little or not at all. In Aix they are kept so 

 low that the fruit can be gathered with tho 

 h&nd. The trees between N'imes aud Tou- 

 lon are higher, while those about Caiiues, 

 (ir.isse and Mce are from thirty to forty or 

 tifty feet in height, as described in previous 

 articles. At Beziers an effort is marie to 

 render the gathering easy and lo ventilate 

 the tree. At I'erpignau, in Uotisillon and 

 tho Aude. places aufl localities in the south 

 of France, the mother branch is suppressed 

 each year. Iu other localities the middle 

 of the tree is removed every year. In the 

 south of France and in the Riviera the lack 

 of sufficient moibture. which has con- 

 tinued many years, with, tho incidental 

 diseases, has rendered the orchards iu 

 great measure sterile, which accounts for 

 tho neglect. 



VARIOUS METHODS. 



Cutting requires great discernment, and 

 should be regulated by the exposure, the 



illness. Therefore, each region California 

 among the rest must adopt its own meth- 

 ods. The main point is to remove excess of 

 wood, and especially the parts that are dis- 

 eased or dead. It is an old French maxim 

 of olive culture: "Make me poor in wood 

 and I will make thee rich iu oil." An an- 

 l.aiin proverb says: "In plowing 

 an olive tree it is praved to be pro- 

 ductive: in manuring it is supplicated, 

 but in cutting or pruning it is eon- 

 strained." Tnere Is another renson 

 i'Cfsl periods and modes of cut- 

 tingthat is, the times when the har- 

 vest is desired, llio olive is not in itself 

 either annual, biennial, or triennial, but 

 cr,n be made each by a particular mode of 

 pruning. In the Department of the Mari- 

 time Alps the harvest, such as it Is, is sa'.h- 



receive the roots of the tree. Some writers <->rcd every two years, that of one year being 

 have recommended the excavation of these foregone that that of the following season 

 holes a year in advance, but the burning of maybe nioro abundant. The cultivators 

 a little straw in them compensates in a argue that it will bo useless to work to pro- 

 great measuro for the lack of this anticipat- 

 ory labor, if the earth is dry the trans- 

 planting is done in the winter; If wet, in 

 the spring, febbles and gravel lighten and 

 i relieve a too moist soil by being 

 mixed with the earth in tho hole, at the 

 bottom of which can also be placed with 

 profit leaves, dead wood or shavings. ' The 

 ancient.i had a habit of making at the bot- 

 tom a be. 1 of groins of barley. The young 

 tree should be brought to its new home 

 1 with great care and the precaution should 

 always ba taken to so place it that the sun 

 will strike it from precisely the same direc- 

 tion. -This can emily be done, as did the 

 ancients, by marking the side that had the 

 southern exposure in the nursery. When 

 planted on level ground the youns tree 

 should be placed three or four inches 

 deeper than when in the nursery, and this 

 depth should be increased on hillsides. The 

 earth that covers the rools should be mixed 

 with fertilizing material, the kind not being 

 reckoned important. After having watered 

 the ground thoroughly, placed over it a bed 

 of straw, duir a trench about it to contain 

 the water in winter a work that must de- 

 pend somewhat on circumstances and 

 given the young tree a good prop, the im- 

 mediate attention due it may be consid- 

 ered as finished. The kind of prop recom- 

 mended Is a sort of tripod, with a ring at 

 the top encircling the stem. A coating o( 

 whitewash is thought by some to be even 

 better than an envelope of straw, which 

 favors the development of the upper buds 

 to the prejudice of the lower. 



-W AND fRAINING. 



A portion of the foregoing description 

 may not teem clear, but It is difficult to ex- 

 plain all that French and Italian writers 

 attempt to say oboct "shoots," ' suckers," 

 " buds" snd "slips," their modes ;of separa- 

 tion and their planting without the use of> 

 cti-.-i. Tho little obscuri:ies, it is hoped, how- 

 ever, will not stand practically in the way 

 of any rational mode of removing the 

 young plant:, to the nnrso-ry, treating them 

 well while there, lopping anil pruning tirem.i 

 transplanting them at aueii tlinc as the Cre- 

 fnl and intelligent propagator may deem 

 advisable, and dolnt; the main part ot thoi 

 pruning before or after the !in:il trsn 



duce only enough for the insects which a'.- 

 lark it, while if tho year is prolific there 

 will ho fruit enough for the friends ol the 

 olive as well as its enemies. If the crown 

 of the tree is cut off it will only yield fruit 

 the third season. If, on the contrary, tho 

 young branches attached to tne old are reft, 

 these branches will be filled with 

 branches the year of the pruning an.l th.- 

 following year will bo loaded with fruit. A 

 practical illustration of the effect of cutting 

 off tin- top and nil the principal branches 

 was shown me in tho nnrsory of the Pro- 

 prietors' L'nidn of Nice. Here, on a tree 

 kept so low that its highest branches were 

 scarcely beyond the reach of the hand, and 

 so thoroughly lopped and pruned that the 

 troarmcnl seemed a cruel mutilation, I saw 

 branches so full of fruit that it scarcely 

 seemed possible that they would hold more. 

 It was only tho experiment ol the manager, 

 one amonu innumerable others, and wheu 



I asked him if the tree so treated was ever 

 likely to atlntu the age of several hundred 

 year-, like hundreds of others in the adja- 

 cent oichards, he only shrugged his shoul- 

 ders and intimated that he should never 



II ve to determine so f:ir-reaching a qu; 



It is nevertheless certain that any method ' 

 of forcing the tree beyond a certain poiut is 

 at the expensoof Us vitality. Whether, con- 

 sidering Urn (net. it would not be as well, 

 where land is aouurjivnt, to force the olive, 

 with a view to larao rroi'S, and be replacing 

 it from time to time with other trees that 

 were constantly coming into bearing, is one 

 of the questions of the future, so far as Cali- 

 fornia is concerned. 



U'lIKN 



The art consists entirely, according to M. 

 Perugallo of Nice, in disembarrassing iho 

 tree of the parts which produce only feMP 

 branches or shoots, and compelling it to pro- 

 duco new wood. An authority who 

 rules for tho olive-prod;: 

 about Marseilles pr 



d says lha', i who 



.rom the practice hare rintl 



reason to regret it. As 'hese cultivators, 



acted iu this man 



they hm 1'ihave a turves! each 



year, ho SU ; TL:"S:S tho division of in 



