6 



OLIVES. 



pulled were universally rotten. I was afterwards told, 

 by Mr. Gordon, that all olives are rotten this year, and 

 that this is invariably the case every second year. A 

 little further, we saw a new plantation on the opposite 

 side of the road, and luckily found a peasant under a 

 miserable shed of leaves and straw. To our questions 

 respecting the olives, he informed us that the plants bear 

 a little fruit even the first year : but in the second and 

 third years they bear a considerable crop, in proportion 

 to their size. Some of what we saw had been eighteen 

 months planted, some only six months. The former ap- 

 peared healthy young trees, covered with a considerable 

 quantity of foliage : the latter had only a few slender 

 shoots, and some of them indeed stood in their original 

 nakedness. These olive plants were nothing else but 

 large limbs of old trees, from eight to ten feet in length, 

 and from two to three inches in diameter. They are 

 sunk about four or five feet into the ground ; and the 

 part of the plant above ground is covered, during the 

 first summer, with a cone of earth or clay, to the height 

 of from two to three feet. After leaving this young plan- 

 tation we struck off to the left, and made for the nearest 

 vineyard across the fields. In consequence of the very 

 heavy rains during the two preceding days, most of the 

 vineyards were deserted ; the people in this part of the 

 country almost universally living in the towns. We found 

 no person in the cellar of the first vineyard we entered ; 

 but in the next there were two idle peasants lounging 

 about the door of the cellar. Giving our horses to the 

 younger, we entered into conversation with the elder 

 vinador. The extent of the vineyard, he said, was 40 

 aranzadas — about 38^- English acres. He said they 

 usually made from 66 to 68 butts of wine ; but this year 



