104 
OLIVE TREE. 
the interior of the State, will be the scene of this culture. Perhaps it will 
be extended to some parts of the Western States ; it has been hastily con- 
cluded that the Olive can exist only in the vicinity of the sea ; it is found 
in the centre of Spain, and in Mesopotamia at the distance of a hundred 
leagues from the shore. The trial should be made in every place where 
its failure is not certain, and for this purpose young grafted trees should be 
obtained from Europe, and the formation of nurseries from the seed imme- 
diately begun. 
The Olive is perhaps the most valuable, but it is not the only accession 
that might be made to our vegetable kingdom, if a more enterprising spirit 
prevailed in our husbandry, and if establishments were formed for the 
reception of exotic plants. This important subject claims the attention of 
government ; amid its labors for the promotion of commerce and manufac- 
tures, why should not its fostering care be extended to agriculture ? 
PLATE LXXXVII. 
A branch with leaves and fruit of the natural size. Fig. 1 . Flowers of the 
natural size. Fig. 2, A flower magnified. Fig. 3, A drupe with the stone ex- 
posed. 
Note. — The preceding article was written at the request of Mr. Michaux, 
for whom I seize with pleasure an opportunity of expressing my esteem ; 
justice obliges me to avow that it has not had the benefit of his revision. 
I have consulted the most judicious ancient and modern works, Colu- 
mella, Pliny, the New Duhamel, the Memoirs of the Academy of Marseilles, 
etc., and have myself observed the Olive in Provence;' 
Augustus L. Hillhouse, 
Citizen of the United States. 
[See Nuttall’s Supplement, Vol. 3, page 68, where it is said that the 
“ cultivation of the Olive has been attended with the greatest success in 
Upper California, and the Olives produced are of an excellent quality. It 
might also, no doubt, be cultivated in the southern part of the Oregon Ter- 
ritory. Around Santa Barbara, the Olive Trees were in full flower in the 
latter end of March and beginning of April, and put on the appearance of 
a Willow Grove. Forty barrels of these pickled Olives were shipped from 
St. Diego to Boston in the Alert, the vessel in which I returned to the 
United States in 1836.”] 
