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OLIVE CULTURE IN BUTTE COUNTY. 



Essay by John C. Gray, Oroville. 



About the twentieth of March, 1886, I set out twenty acres of Mission 

 olives. They were planted in the foothills, about five miles east of Oroville, 

 in Butte County. The trees grew from cuttings and were two years old. 

 They were two and three feet in length, and about half an inch in diameter. 

 The trees were taken from the cars and hauled five miles to the land in 

 which they were afterwards set, and there piled on the ground, exposed to 

 the hot sun and a fierce north wind. The ground had to be plowed. This 

 was done as fast as three teams could do it. A crew of men were put at 

 work setting out the trees as fast as possible. The rows were not straight, 

 nor the trees put an equal distance apart, though an attempt was made to 

 set them twenty feet distant from each other. The land consisted of a red 

 loam, mixed with some gravel. It does not differ materially from the red 

 earth found almost everywhere along the low foothills of the Sierras, on the 

 side next to the Sacramento Valley. The ground, which had thus hastily 

 been prepared and planted, was plowed again later in the spring and well 

 harrowed. The trees were irrigated in July and again in the middle of 

 August. About the first of October, about half the trees were dry enough 

 to break off close to the cutting. Many of them were, in fact, so broken 

 off and supposed to be of no value. The remainder remained green, but 

 showed no signs of having made any growth. During the following winter 

 the ground was again plowed and well harrowed. In May a few of the 

 trees seemed to put forth new shoots, and gave evidence of having some 

 life left. Later in the season new shoots came up from some of the cuttings 

 that the dried tops had broken off from the season before, and these grew 

 very rapidly, and are now the finest trees in the orchard. During the 

 summer of 1887 the ground was well cultivated and the trees irrigated 

 twice. They made but little growth during the year. During the year 

 1887 they made a very rapid growth, many of them being seven and eight 

 feet in height. But the strangest part of the business is, that even at this 

 late day trees are coming up from cuttings that have been in the ground 

 since March, 1888. Some of tbem are not four inches in height, and yet 

 they give promise of one day becoming a tree like their more forward 

 neighbors. 



But the most important question that is asked by the person who desires 

 to plant olives along the foothills of the Sacramento Valley is: " Will they 

 grow and bear fruit without irrigation ?" Quite a number of the most 

 thrifty, as well as rapidly growing trees, have not been irrigated at all. 

 Those not irrigated look as well to-day as those that have been irrigated. 



A few days ago I visited the ten-acre field of Mr. C. E. Kusel, about two 

 miles from Oroville. The trees are between two and three feet high, and 

 were set out in the middle of March, 1888. They are the Mission variety. 

 They have not been irrigated, but have been well cultivated. More than 

 95 per cent were alive and growing as well as the owner could desire. 



I have seen the olives that grew upon two trees near Oroville that had 

 never been irrigated, and the berry was large, plump, and as perfect as 

 those that grow in our yards about the house and receive irrigation daily. 



I am of the opinion that all one needs to do to make his trees flourish 

 and bear well is to cultivate the ground well and often, and use fertilizers 

 quite liberally; for these foothill lands are not so rich and strong as those 



