THE OLIYE 



37 



breeze from the Mediterranean Sea. For successful cultivation the 

 yearly mean temperatures should not be less than 57 degrees Fah- 

 renheit. As to locality where olive culture is possible and practic- 

 able. Five hundred and eighty-eight feet of elevation represent one 

 degree of latitude, so Colfax with an elevation of 2421 feet above 

 the level of the sea and standing nearly on the thirty-ninth paral- 

 lel of latitude must be debited with a little more than four degrees, 

 which would bring it up to between forty three and forty four de- 

 grees, showing that Colfax and places of similar elevation and 

 latitude nearly touch the northern limit of the olive in California, 

 To cultivate it successfully further north a lower situation must be 

 sought. Hence the further south the point of cultivation the great- 

 er may be the elevation. In the Sierra Nevada mountains, in Gre- 

 nada, Spain, in latitude thirty-seven degrees,- the olive flourishes 

 at a height of three thousand feet. In Algiers, North Africa, in 

 about latitude thirty-five in the Atlas range, it is found at a height 

 of forty-eight hundred feet. 



In Catania, Italy, it is successfully grown at an elevation of three 

 thousand one hundred feet. The olive dearly loves a breeze, not 

 simply air and ventilation but a veritable soft wind. This is there- 

 fore necessary to its well doing, especially at the flowering season. 

 A still, intense heat may be fatal to the promise of a crop by burn- 

 ing off the blossoms; for this reason and also to escape humidity 

 it forsakes the plain and seeks the middle hills. The olive avoids 

 the arid tops of wind swept heights but its home is the half hill. 

 Follow a line of olive trees up a steep and it will be noticeable that 

 those nearest the top are found to be stunted and lacking soil about 

 the roots, the earth having been carried down the slope by rains 

 and the trees are visibly affected by their situation. 



Within the olive zone there undoubtedly are many points where 

 the tree will not thrive because it is exposed to too great cold which 

 must be fatal to it — say anything below fourteen decrees — or, if the 

 heat be too great it evaporates the sap and thus prevents nutrition. 



