24 DRY-LAND OLIVE CULTURE 1 1ST NORTHERN AFRICA. 



Occasionally the truncheons are planted in nursery form before 

 being set out in the orchard. In a large orchard thus established 

 near Sfax that was visited by the writer, the trees, after having 

 grown one year in the nursery and three years in the orchard, were 

 5 to 6 feet high above ground. Ordinarily, olive trees grown from 

 these large pieces of old wood begin to bear when six years of age, 

 but do not give any considerable amount of fruit until ten years old. 



The estimated cost of planting one hundred trees in the manner 

 above described is $4.75 to $5.30, including the purchase and trans- 

 portation of the cuttings, digging the holes, and planting. This is 

 only possible because of the very cheap labor obtainable in Tunis, 40 

 to 50 cents being the ordinary day's wages of laborers in the olive 

 orchards at Sfax. 



WATERING THE YOUNG TREES. 



While the olive orchards at Sfax are not irrigated after they are 

 once established, sufficient water for that purpose being unobtainable, 

 it is usually necessary to water the young trees during the first sum- 

 mer or two after they are set out. For this purpose the water of wells 

 and cisterns is used. There seems to be much diversity of opinion as 

 to the number of waterings that are necessary, but the usual practice 

 appears to be to water two or three times during each of the first two 

 summers after planting, at the rate of 5 to 10 gallons to the tree at 

 each watering. Frequently the young orchards are given no water 

 during the second summer. In one plantation visited by the writer 

 the trees were watered only once after planting. It is said that in 

 exceptionally rainy years no watering whatever is necessary and that 

 the trees planted in such years make the best growth. The labor re- 

 quired in watering is a considerable item in the expense of establish- 

 ing an olive orchard at Sfax, the nearest well being often a mile 

 distant from some of the trees. The natives water their trees by 

 means of earthenware jars holding 4 or 5 gallons, but on the large 

 plantations owned by Europeans a watering cart is generally used. 

 To facilitate its passage, a strip of land 6 feet or so wide on either 

 side of the rows of trees is left unplowed during the summer. 6 



a Minangoin estimates that there should be one well to every 570 acres of 

 orchard. (L'Olivier en Tunisie, 1901, p. 57.) 



6 As a means of avoiding at least part of this laborious watering, it was sug- 

 gested to the writer by M. Louis Drappier, of the Service des Antiquites et des 

 Beaux Arts at Tunis, that a practice followed by the Arabs in establishing 

 orchards in parts of Algeria where water is scarce might be advantageously 

 adapted to dry-land olive culture. This consists in placing in the bottom of 

 each hole in which a young tree is to be set about 100 pounds of cactus pads 

 and covering them with a thin layer of soil, upon which the young tree is 

 set. It is said that a supply of moisture sufficient to last two years is thereby 

 assured. It would seem doubtful, however, whether an adequate supply of 

 moisture would thus be provided and also whether good conditions for the roots 

 of the young trees would result from this manner of planting. 



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