46 



THE OLIVE 



EXPOSURE. 



The situation suitable for the olive in one locality, will not always 

 answer in another. A southerly ex2)osure, where there is a good, 

 free circulation of air, is generally the most desirable, esj3ecially as 

 one goes northward. In any latitude, a southern exposure, is best 

 calculated to receive the sunshine from early sunrise to sunset. It 

 receives all there is to give. A northerly exposure receives the sun's 

 rays obliquely, and then only after it has risen high in the 

 heavens ; and so, as the sum total of heat is less, the fruit 

 ripens late, and in some cases not at all. An easterly exposure has 

 the full force of the sun all the morning, but after noon, there is 

 either no sunshine, or feeble, slanting rays, so that at the very time 

 when the sunlight is strongest^ an easterly position is deprived of 

 its warmth altogether. Of course a westerly exposure is just the re- 

 verse of this, and after a morning passed in the shade, the tree is 

 suddenly overwhelmed with sunlight at a time of day when the 

 temperature is the highest. In summer, the variations of tempera- 

 ture in half an hour's time, may be from sixty to ninety-eight de- 

 grees. This sudden change is as harmful to plants as to animals. 

 The more perpendicular the sun's rays are, naturally, the more heat 

 they give; so also the farther north one goes, the more oblique they 

 become and lessen in warmth. Therefore the higher the latitude, 

 the greater the necessity of a hillside to receive the sun perpendic- 

 ularly. A well-protected situation, with a southern exposure, may 

 be considered equal to a point one degree farther south. The in- 

 fluence of a protection, be it a mountain range, a fence, or a hedge, 

 is felt for a distance equal to eleven times its height, but at the 

 point where the protecting influence is lost, the wind has greater 

 power than if the shelter did not exist. Strong and impetuous 

 winds injure the olive, especially sea winds, on account of their 

 vaj)or and saline j)roperties. 



