A LITTLE PLACE IN THE COUNTRY. 



to supply the demand. The wild berries are usually 

 plentiful, and good enough when eaten out of 

 hand in the woods or the berry patch, after a battle 

 with the briars. But notwithstanding all the ro- 

 romance of the "fruit's wild flavor," they do not 

 compare, for table use. with big, ripe, luscious 

 Lawtons. The cost of gathering red raspberries 

 is a serious drawback to the profits. The larger 

 blackberries fill the baskets so rapidly that the cost 

 is hardly appreciable. 



While the fruit garden must claim much atten- 

 tion this month, we cannot wholly neglect the vege- 

 tables or we should suffer for it by and by. That 

 part of the garden already planted must have at- 

 tention. Perhaps the weeds have not started much 

 yet, but if the plants are up the ground must be 

 worked. April showers sometimes come down 

 with force enough to pack the soil pretty hard. 

 The hoe and rake will be constantly needed to 

 keep the surface loosened. Other plantings be- 

 sides those we instanced last month must now 

 follow in quick succession. Every week from now 

 until midsummer should see something go into the 

 ground, so that as the season progresses we maj' 

 have, each week, something new for the home 

 table and for market. We shall soon be gathering 

 onions, beets and radishes for market. The ground 

 upon which they are grown should be rich and in 

 good mechanical condition — kept loose and mellow 



up to the very day these crops are taken off. If 

 it is in such good heart, the very best way in 

 which it can be employed for a second crop is to 

 set plants of early summer cabbage in the rows as 

 fast as any open places are made. The larger roots 

 will be pulled first, and thus vacant places will be 

 made in which plants can be set, sometime before 

 we could wholly clear the land. If plants are set in 

 every alternate row of these beds they could be about 

 the right distance (two feet) apart. The spaces 

 may occur with some irregularity ; set the plants 

 as nearly as possible two feet apart in the row, 

 and if the rows are straight one way there will be 

 no difficulty in cultivating them. To have the 

 plants handy, a bed should be sown (in the open 

 ground) as near as can be to the place where we 

 shall use them. Then we can pull one or a hun- 

 dred plants and set them in as wanted, leaving the 

 ground unoccupied hardly for an hour. If this 

 bed is sown by the tenth of this month the plants 

 will be ready in time, and will mature just in time 

 to follow the first early cabbage grown from hot- 

 bed plants. The advantage of having this bed of 

 plants " handy" cannot be too strongly impressed. 

 If it is a long distance away, it will hardly seem 

 worth the trouble to go to it and pull a few plants 

 at a time. But when close by the work will seem 

 so attractive that we shall let very little ground re- 

 main unoccupied. 



THE OLIVE IN CALIFORNIA. 



es^^g HE OLIVE industry promises 

 l-j i\ to be one of the most prosper- 



ous branches of horticulture 

 in California. The southern 

 counties were at first thought 

 to be peculiarly adaffted to the 

 olive, as to the orange, but 

 later experience has very great- 

 ly extended the region of successful olive-culture, 

 and trees are being planted, this season, on cheap 

 mountain lands three hundred miles north of San 

 Francisco. 



Perhaps too much has been written in California 

 publications about the profits of the olive, and far 

 too little about its food value for home consump- 

 tion. It is the poor man's tree, at home on rocky 

 hillsides. The Californian laborer of the next cen- 

 tury must live somewhat as the Italian peasant 

 does, upon olive oil, grapes and bread, rather than 

 upon butter a'nd meats. 



The present condition of the olive industry can 



be briefly stated. For five years past, every tree 

 that the nurserymen could possibly produce has 

 been sold. Orchards are now planted in at least 

 30 of the 53 counties of the state. Several promi- 

 nent growers have gone to Europe to study the 

 choice varieties of the olive. Five or six books on 

 the olive have been published in San Francisco. 

 One of the best of these is Adolph Flamant's 

 "Treatise on Olive Culture;" another is by A. T. 

 Marvin, of the Quito Olive Farm. At least a 

 dozen magazine articles on the olive have appeared 

 in various publications. The reports of the State 

 University, and the Horticultural Board, contain not 

 less than twenty papers and discussions of value to 

 olive growers. The literature of the daily news- 

 paper on the subject is, as usual, somewhat hap- 

 hazard and misleading, because seldom written by 

 practical olive growers. 



The pioneer of the olive industry is Elwood 

 Cooper, of Santa Barbara, a man of great energy 

 and persistence. Mr. Lelong, head secretary of 



