14 



THE OLIVE IN CALIFORNIA. 



acres into an olive orchard. The soil is red, sandy 

 loam — lava formation, not more than eight or ten inches 

 to three feet in depth, underlaid with rotten sandstone^ 

 and originally covered with a thick growth of chaparral 

 and manzanita. After seeding for hay about ten years, 

 it really no longer paid for seed and labor. We could 

 not afford to buy many olive trees, so we began with 

 200 very small ones — one-year-old cuttings — none of 



Fig. 2. — The Pr.ecox, an Early California Olive, (life size. 



them a foot high, and the stems scarcely as large as a 

 slate-pencil. These were planted out in March of 1887. 

 In July only three or four had died, the rest making a 

 most vigorous growth. The second year they made an 

 astonishing growth, and now most of them are over 

 seven feet high, with stems from two to three inches 

 in diameter. About ten of them bloomed the latter 

 part of April, and now have fruit." 



Another characteristic account of a hillside orchard 

 comes from the Napa Reporter, which says : "In 1884, 

 Adolph Flamant planted sixty acres of the most unin- 

 viting and barren portion of what was then known as 

 the Simonton Ranch, six miles west of Napa, to olives. 

 Among boulders and rocks, wherever he could find a 

 little pocket of soil, he put in young olive plants. But 

 all was not smooth sailing. In subsequent seasons the 

 fire got into the dry grass on the hill- 

 sides and twice swept over a large 

 part of his plantation. Another year 

 the grasshopper turned loose among 

 his treasured trees and did destructive 

 work. These agencies lost for Mr. 

 Flamant 1,400 trees out of the 6,000 

 originally set out, but they were 

 promptly replaced. ' Now come and 

 see for yourself what I have,' said the 

 persevering owner of the plantation to 

 us the other day, and with two other 

 gentlemen we gladly permitted ourself 

 to be piloted over the place. What 

 did we see ? On rough hillsides where 

 no plough can ever run, and no sickle 

 can ever cut, because of protruding 

 boulders and plateaus of bed-rock, 

 clean and thrifty olive trees, from 

 four to six years old, are growing, the 

 largest of them eleven inches in cir- 

 cumference at the base, eight feet 

 high and almost as many feet broad, 

 loaded with blossoms. Some of them 

 promise a yield this year of three or 

 four gallons of berries to the tree," 



In fact, one may reckon the hillside 

 land fit for olives and for hardly any 

 other fruit except, perhaps, the carob, 

 on millions of acres in the Coast 

 Range, and other millions in the Sier- 

 ras. These vast areas of mountains 

 are covered with dwarf oaks, "grease 

 wood," manzanita, digger pines (/". 

 Torreya), and various kinds of vege- 

 tation that is of little or no value. 

 In the opens are fair extents of pas- 

 turage, but the "bush" encroaches 

 upon them, and over cropping has de- 

 stroyed some of the best native spe- 

 cies of grasses. The olive is the most 

 available tree for these mountain 

 lands. It does not need irrigation ; 

 trees can be obtained cheaply, grown easily and cared 

 for at little expense With these advantages it is not 

 strange that the olive acreage increases every year ; and 

 the fancy grocers can not long beguile the public into 

 paying exorbitant prices for pickled olives — most tooth- 

 some of relishes — under the deceptive Italian label, for 

 California is filling the demand for fine olives at prices 

 profitable to the grower and moderate to the consumer. 



