Annals of Horticulture. 



"The olive is being extensively planted and widely distrib- 

 uted in California. It is one of the very first trees brought 

 to the country from Spain and Mexico by the good padres, 

 more than 100 "years ago. It is only within the past few years 

 that the olive has met with full appreciation at the hands of 

 California horticulturists. But few orchards of considerable 

 age are to be found in the state, aside from the few old, 

 gnarly trees that proclaim here and there the site of an an- 

 cient mission. Mr. Ellwood Cooper, of Santa Barbara 

 county, and the Kimball Brothers, of San Diego county, have 

 been for many years the most extensive growers of olives and 

 the largest producers of oil in this state. The pure oil pro- 

 ducts of their olive orchards have established the value of 

 California oil in many of the great markets of this country, 

 though as yet the output of olive oil in this state is compara- 

 tively small, but with the immense number of olive trees now 



ton of a few years. Olives have been most extensively planted 

 in the southern counties, though the industry is reaching out 

 in various directions. The people are fully awake to the ad- 

 vantages derived from planting the olive, which fact accounts 

 for the planting of some hundreds of thousands of trees dur- 



"Mr^Cooper^reports the yield of oil to be from 10 to 12 

 per cent, in weight of the fruit used ; hence, some idea may 

 be gained of the possible outcome of olive planting as a busi- 

 ness venture. In some sections of the state, the olive bears early 

 and abundantly, and it is generally understood that the tree 

 requires less care than most others. To give some notion of 

 the production of oil in the great producing centers of the 

 world, we may state that Italy, with an area of only 112,000 

 square miles, has 2,250,000 acres devoted to olive culture, 

 from which the average annual yield is about 54,000,000 gal- 

 lons. Of this amount, about 20,000,000 gallons are annually 

 exported, of which the United States gets a small part. An 

 immense area is devoted to the olive in Spain, and is esti- 

 mated at about 5,000,000 acres, from which there is a yearly 

 output of 150,000,000 gallons of oil. Only a small part of 

 this oil is exported, some 10,000,000 gallons, owing to its in- 



"To gauge the capacity of the Spaniard as an oil consumer, 



