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further down in the valley. The winter of 1887-8 was the coldest we have 

 had on this coast since 1854. The snow fell to the depth of two inches 

 over my orchard and remained on the ground four days. On the second 

 morning it was hard enough to bear my weight as I walked across the 

 field. Yet when the warm days came again I could not see that the trees 

 had suffered in the least from the effects of the cold. My neighbors exam- 

 ined them critically, for they felt sure that I had seen the last of my folly 

 alive, but they found no sign of their having been injured. 



The olive will grow on lands that extend into the mountains to an eleva- 

 tion of at least two thousand feet. I know of no tests having been made 

 higher than that. Mine are on land having an elevation of seven hundred 

 feet. 



DISCUSSION ON OLIVE CULTURE. 



Mr. Wilcox: In my neighborhood, about three miles from Santa Clara, 

 in the old Mission we have olive trees more than a hundred years old. 

 We have what is called the artesian belt midway between the headwaters 

 of the Bay of Alviso and Santa Clara, where it is proposed to make a broad 

 avenue to be called Olive Avenue, and I would like to know what olive 

 will grow best in such soil and under such conditions. It is heavy adobe 

 land, and down about six feet from the surface is a stratum of clay which 

 holds water. 



Mr. P. W. Butler: I would like Mr. Dondero to tell us, if where those 

 finest olives are grown up in the foothills without irrigation, if they have 

 facilities for irrigating, and, if they have, whether it would not be desirable 

 in his opinion ? 



Mr. Dondero: I think there is hardly any country that has the facility 

 for irrigation that they have there. The fact is that Italy has the most 

 perfect irrigation system known in Europe or in the world, and wherever 

 it has been tried the tree, as I stated, is generally benefited, and the fruit 

 never — at least, the olive is always of an inferior quality. 



Mr. Butler: I have had a little experience in olive growing, though not 

 an olive fruit grower. I have some two hundred olive trees planted along 

 avenues and surrounding my orchard, just simply for ornamentation, 

 thinking that if any profit came from them there would be that much 

 gain; but I have had a good chance to make comparisons between those 

 irrigated and not irrigated, for there were a few olive trees along the line 

 of my fence that never have been irrigated, and they are not one fourth of 

 the size of those where we have had a chance to irrigate them ; they have 

 fruited very little at all, and the fruit is very small and inferior, and I 

 notice those that had the most irrigation — it is all hillside land — are almost 

 as large as the peach trees, both the same, seven years old, and the fruit 

 is very fine; they both had the same cultivation. That is the condition 

 in the foothills of Sierra Valley mountains. We have a rainfall of twenty- 

 five to twenty-seven inches every year, but the soil is somewhat shallow, 

 from two to four feet deep, and not much moisture can be conserved in the 

 ground, even by cultivation, through a hot summer; in low land, where 

 the soil is deeper, there would be more moisture retained, and, possibly, the 

 trees would do better without irrigation. I do not know whether the soil 

 in the conditions are the same in the olive countries, but if it were I should 

 naturally infer that even if it produced an inferior oil that the quantity would 

 be so much less that it would be a gain to irrigate. 



Mr. Klee: I think if you compare the samples and the cut presented 

 by Mr. Lelong with the Picholine, as grown in France, and as described, you 

 will feel satisfied that our so called Picholine is not the true one; however, 



