THE OLIVE TREE. 



for sale, and perhaps a goat or two for milking, 

 keep the family in what among them is con- 

 sidered quite reasonable comfort and respecta- 

 bility. Again, in the sub-Apennine Mountains 

 the chestnut is the principal stand-by. So im- 

 portant is the chestnut as an article of food 

 and nourishment, that even should a mother 

 lose her milk, or has had but little or none, she 

 has only to have recourse to her store of chest- 

 nut meal, however tender her babe may be, 

 when a spoonful of it made into pap . and 

 strengthened with a small quantity of wine will 

 answer all the ends required, as many a sturdy 

 Italian now living in California can testify. 



In places in Southern Europe, where every 

 bit of land is turned to account, it not unfre- 

 quently happens that there is a steep, rocky 

 corner where vines could not be profitably cul- 



grown along fences and hedge-rows, or other- 

 wise worthless stony places. 



(6.) Being an evergreen, when planted around 

 fences it forms a capital shelter for more deli- 

 cate fruits, vineyards, etc. 



(7.) Last, but not least, because when once 

 brought into bearing, it will not need to be re- 

 newed, but will be still yielding its annual crop 

 when the last ounce of gold or silver shall have 

 been wrung from the bowels of the earth. 



THE LONGEVITY OF THE OLIVE TREE 



Is wonderful. Its life-period is not certainly 

 known. The tree above ground will, of course, 

 die out. In fact, in the long course of years it 

 becomes a mere shell^for it begins to die at 

 the core, but the root does not perish. Out of 

 this springs the new tree. In the 

 very old olive groves about Palma, 

 near Lisbon, in Portugal, I have 

 noted this circumstance oftener 

 than once. Travelers most com- 

 petent to judge are agreed that the 

 present olive trees on Mount Oli- 

 vet, near Jerusalem, are the same 

 that Christ prayed under and his 

 disciples fell asleep under nine- 

 teen hundred years ago, and they 

 are even now yielding their annual 

 crop of fruit. 



GROUND FOR A PLANTATION. 



TERRACING VINES AND OLIVE TREES. 



tivated, in which case rough terracing is had 

 recourse to to keep the soil together, and allow 

 some cultivation, as is shown in the engraving. 



One might naturally ask why the olive tree 

 has ever been such a favorite in Southern Eu- 

 rope, Asia, and Africa with men who have an 

 eye to economic industries? It certainly is 

 not a very ornamental tree. To reply briefly, 

 I should say : 



(i.) Because of the ease with which it can be 

 raised from seed; or, better still, propagated 

 from large cuttings. 



(2.) The little attention the plant requires 

 when once it has broken into leaf. 



(3.) Because when properly planted, trun- 

 cheon fashion, it will usually begin to bear the 

 fourth year not unfrequently a few berries the 

 third year. 



(4.) The certainty of a crop. It usually bears 

 in alternate years a heavy and a light crop. 



(5.) The fact that no great breadth of land is 

 needed for a plantation since it can be readily 



When the purpose' is to form an 

 olive grove to be devoted to the 

 growth of the olive tree for fruit 

 alone, then all experience points to a moder- 

 ately strong soil such as would bear wheat, with 

 a rather moist subsoil, as the best. Drainage 

 will be found necessary where there is any dan- 

 ger of stagnant water lodging about the roots. 

 These conditions have been found in the great- 

 est perfection on low hills and slopes exposed 

 more or less to sea breezes. From my own ex- 

 perience and observation deep trenching was 

 not needed, but, of course, very advantageous 

 when labor and cost are of little consideration. 

 If the holes for the plants be dug three feet 

 in diameter by about the same in depth, that 

 will be sufficient to give them a good hold on 

 the ground, and for the rest they will take care 

 of themselves. In this connection, I gladly 

 avail myself of remarks made by Mr. B. B. 

 Redding, of San Francisco, in the course of an 

 interesting paper on olive growing read two 

 years ago before the Academy of Sciences : 



"This tree will grow in almost any soil except 

 that containing much moisture. Marsh states 



