THE OLIVE 



57 



To restore the same fertilizing principles with the foliage of the tree, 

 alone, it would be necessary to yearly use at least fifty-two pounds. 



Without manure the olive gives but a small crop of berries. 

 Anything that can be used to enrich the soil is valuable; decayed 

 vegetable matter, night soil, old rags, shoes, bones, hoofs, guano, 

 fowl dung, are excellent manures. Green manure, in the dry sum- 

 mers of California, can be employed to great advantage. 



During the early autumn rains, plants of rapid winter growth, 

 such as beans, lupins, vetches, are sown in the orchard and turned 

 under in the spring, thus giving a cheap manure without any cost 

 for carriage. Whatever may be the nature of the manure, it is im- 

 portant not to place it at the foot of the trees, but to bury it at a 

 slight depth from one to two yards distant from the trunk, digging 

 a shallow trench for the purpose. It is a matter of absolute neces- 

 sity to manure the olive, under penalty of losing all produce if 

 abandoned to itself, and remembering also, that the produce will al- 

 ways be in proportion to the manure applied. In fact some writ- 

 ers say, that if the olive is not largely manured it had much better 

 be pulled up altogether. 



M. Riondet says: The expense of cultivating the olive varies 

 greatly. If they are never manured, or pruned, the cost will not 

 amount to more than eight dollars per annum, per acre, or sixteen dol- 

 lars for two years, for this is the period that always enters into these 

 calculations, since the tree ordinarily only gives a crop every second 

 year. If it is desired to have regular and abundant crops, we 

 should not fear to spend eighty dollars per acre every two years. 



In the winter, after an abundant crop, it is necessary to manure 

 the orchard heavily, at an expense of twenty-four dollars per acre, 

 pruning, will cost sixteen dollars per acre, ploughing, sixteen more 

 to which add for the expense of gathering and taking the crop to 

 mill, another twenty-four dollars, and so we reach the sum of eighty 

 dollars per acre for a period of two years. There will be a product 

 of one thousand one hundred and thirty-two gallons of olives, per 



