34 



appeared; but the olive giants, untouched by all vandalic invaders, re- 

 spected by the hurricanes of thirty centuries, are there, covering nearly an 

 acre of ground each, vigorous and productive as in the days of Christ, as 

 if to say: With all thy intelligence and cunning, with all thy pride and 

 vaunted superiority over all other beings, how weak and insignificant thou 

 art, oh man! 



The average duration of this precious tree, however, is considered two 

 hundred and fifty years — long enough for us all! It begins to bear fruit 

 at the seventh year, if well cared for and grafted in the fifth. Its produc- 

 tion increases until the age of forty or fifty. It remains then about the 

 same from year to year, if properly managed, with a perceptible improve- 

 ment in the quality of its oil. 



Italy produces more olive oil than all other countries combined. France 

 has only eight districts in which the cultivation of the olive is possible. 

 The annual average of its production, continually decreasing on account of 

 severe winters, is one million two hundred and fifty thousand gallons. 

 Spain produces about fifteen million gallons. Portugal, Algeria, Tripolis, 

 Egypt, Greece, Dalmatia, and other countries about eighteen million gal- 

 lons. Italy's annual crop is averaged at seventy million gallons, and it 

 increases from year to year. By the perfect methods of cultivation now 

 introduced, with selected stock, Italy's production will be nearly double in 

 the next twenty years. 



An olive grove in that country constitutes the luxury of the wealthy, the 

 resource of the poor, the blessing of all. Adolph Flamant, in his interest- 

 ing treatise on olive culture, tells us that a piece of bread, a flask of wine, 

 and a popket full of olives form the noonday meal of many laborers in the 

 south of France. I will add that polenta (a corn meal mush), with olive 

 oil and wine, is the most substantial noon meal of millions of hard working 

 Italians. 



It is due to the providential olive oil that Italy never had to suffer, dur- 

 ing the appalling pestilences and barbarous invasions of the dark ages, or 

 at any other ancient or modern period, such fearful famines as other coun- 

 tries had. A piece of black bread and oil aided more than once brave 

 defenders in saving cities from destruction. Garibaldi and his fearless 

 followers would not have won the desperate battle of Milazzo and broken 

 the chains of tyranny to eleven millions of people, if the providential oil 

 had not saved them from starvation. It lingers yet in my memorj', a say- 

 ing of my grandmother, at a time when the rapacious legions of the first 

 Napoleon on one side and the cruel Austrian hordes on the other were des- 

 olating her home and olive plantation: " Children, as long as we have in 

 the wallpit a sack of bran and a jar of oil, God is with us and our country." 



I trust that man's crimes and ambition will never plunge this glorious 

 country into such a dreadful condition but the cultivation of the olive will 

 be found none the less beneficial and useful to its generous and prosperous 

 people. 



SOIL AND CLIMATE. 



There is no fruit tree as easily contented as the olive, nor so liberal to its 

 owner for the same amount of care. Any soil will do, although calcareous 

 formations are among the very best. It fruits with the greatest perfection 

 in the porphyritic and slaty regions of Liguria, in the calcareous and marlic 

 soils of Tuscany, in the argillaceous and sandy strata of Umbria, in the 

 volcanic formations of Apulia and Sicily. 



Is there any one among you that ever approached Italy by the sea, par- 

 ticularly the coast of Liguria ? That stretch of land from horizon to horizon, 



