DRY-LAND OLIVE CULTURE IN MODERN TUNIS. 



13 



tween 1892 and 1904 French stock companies and individual colonists 

 purchased from the Tunisian government 200,000 acres of public land 

 and planted more than one and a half million olive trees, besides a 

 large number of almonds. These lands are sold by the government 

 at the rate of 75 cents an acre, one-half of the price being payable in 

 advance and the remainder within four years, on condition that the 

 purchaser shall put the land into a tree crop before the end of that 

 time. This is in pursuance of the policy of the government to en- 

 courage in every possible way the restoration of the olive orchards 

 that made the country prosperous in ancient times. 



At present the orchards extend without interruption to an average 

 distance of 20 to 25 miles from Sfax, while some of the outlying 

 plantations are as much as 40 miles distant from the town. Those 

 within a radius of 12 miles from Sfax, which are now in full bearing, 

 belong almost exclusively to natives, while beyond them are the 

 plantations of young trees more recently established by French col- 

 onists. These newer orchards are in nearly all cases very large, 

 some of them containing more than 25,000 trees. The entire area 

 around Sfax occupied by dry-land olive orchards was estimated in 

 J 900 to be 475,000 acres, containing 3,333,000 trees. During the ten 

 years from 1896 to 1905 a yearly average of more than 1,000,000 gal- 

 lons of oil was produced. The product of these orchards is sufficient 

 to maintain about two dozen oil mills in the town of Sfax, operated 

 by Europeans and equipped with modern machinery, besides twice 

 as many native mills, in which the power is furnished by animals. 



This wide expanse of orchards is a most impressive sight. The 

 best view of it (see PI. IV, fig. 1) is to be had from the summit of 

 a little hill about 10 miles northwest of Sfax to which all visitors 

 are taken. The straight rows of trees, separated by broad bands 

 of bare, reddish soil, stretch to the horizon in almost every direc- 

 tion. The whole face of the country is striped with gray-green 

 and red. Probably nowhere else in the world has olive culture been 

 so highly developed. The regularity of the planting is striking to 

 anyone who is familiar with the haphazard way in which the trees 

 are set out on hillsides in most parts of the Mediterranean region. 

 The trees stand in perfectly straight lines and are 65 to 80 feet apart 

 in each direction. They are carefully trimmed so as to have a sym- 

 metrical, square-topped spread of foliage and are remarkably uni- 



a The jury for olive culture of the Congress held at Tunis in 18SS, which 

 was composed largely of French olive growers, agreed that the plantations at 

 Sfax are " superb and leave far behind anything to be seen in Europe as to 

 development of the trees and quantity of the fruit." At that time the orchards 

 were still practically all in the hands of natives. 

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