THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
7 
rnislakea noiioD, that young men can do better 
West than they can do here. We have lands 
enough in this State, it properly divided, to give 
labor to double the present population. VVe 
have advantages here that you cannot have in 
the western country; and all that is wanted is a 
contented mind and a determination to make 
our own New Hampshire a vender of bread 
stuffs rather than a purchaser. There is 
something radically wrong in suffering such 
an import ot bread stuffs into this State; and by 
you, gentlemen farmers, the wrong must be 
righted. We have water power here that will 
make us independent, if we only cultivate the 
soil and supplv the wants of the consumers who 
are engaged in our manufacturing establish- 
ments." \Ve shall always find a ready market 
for everything that the farmer raises.” 
From the Albany Cultivator. 
THE OLIVE. 
Messrs. Editors; — Dr. Qlin, describing the 
soil and productions of Palestine, speaks thus 
of the olive : 
“ But this is the proper region for the olive 
and the vine. Anciently, these hills were co- 
vered with orchards of Ifuit trees and vineyards, 
and the world does not, probably, produce finer 
grapes, figs and olives, than are annually ga- 
thered about Hebron and Bethlehem. One acre 
of the flinty surface of the Mount of Olives, 
carefully tended in olive trees, would yield more, 
through the e.vchanges of commerce, towards 
human subsistence, than a much larger tract of 
the richest Ohio bottom tilled in corn. Most 
persons know little of the variety and impor- 
tance of the uses to which the fruit of the olive 
is applied in the Eastern nations and in some of 
the Southern countries ot Europe. Large quan- 
tities of the berries are used by the inhabitants, 
and exported as food; but the principal value 
ot the olive consists in die delicious oil that is 
extracted from its fruit. This is used upon the 
table and in cookery, as the substitute for both 
butter and lard. It is universally burned in 
lamps, and instead of candles, which are nearly 
unknown in the east. It is the principal mate- 
rial used in making soap.” — Olln's Trav.h, 
Vol. II., p. 430. 
Mr. Jefferson, in 1787, wrote as follows: 
“ The olive is a tree the least known in Ame- 
rica, and yet the most worthy of being known. 
Of all the gifts of Heaven to man, it is next to 
the most precious, if it be not the most precious. 
Perhaps it may claim a preference even to bread, 
because there is such an infinitude of vegetables 
which it renders a proper and comfortable nou- 
rishment. In passing’ the Alps, at the Col de 
Tende, where there are mere masses of rock, 
wherever there happens to be a little soil, there 
are a number of olive trees, and a village sup- 
ported by them. Take away these trees, and 
the same ground in corn, w'ould not support a 
single family. A pound ot oil, which can be 
bought for three or lour pence sterling, is equi- 
valent to many pounds of flesh, by the quantity 
ot vegetables it will prepare and render fit and 
comfortable food. Without this tree, the coun- 
try ot Provence and the territory of Genoa would 
not support one halt, perhaps notone-third, their 
present inhabitants. The nature of the soil is 
ot little consequence, if the soil be dry.” 
“In Italy, I am told, they have trees ot twc 
hundred years old. They afford an easy and 
constant employment through the year, and re- 
quire so little nourishment, that if the soil be fit 
lor any other production, it may be cultivated 
among the olive trees without injuring them.” 
“Notwithstanding the great quantities of oil 
made in France, they have not enough for their 
own consumption, and therefore import from 
other countries. This is an article, the oon- 
su.mption of which will always keep pace with 
its production. Raise it, and it begets its own 
demand. Cover the southern States with it, 
and every man will become a consumer of oil, 
within whose reach it can be brought, in point 
ot price. If the memory of those persons is 
held in great respect in South Carolina, who in- 
troduced there the culture of rice, a plant which 
sows life and death with almost equal hand, 
what obligations wmuld be due to him who 
should introduce the olive tree, and set the ex- 
ample of its culture 1” — Mr. Jefferson's letter to 
Tko mas Drayton, dated Paris, July 30, 1787. 
“I am persuaded there are many parts of our 
lower country where the olive tree might be 
raised, which is assuredly the richest gilt of 
Heaven. I can scarcely except bread. 1 see 
this tree supporting thousands among the Alps, 
where there is not soil enough to make bread 
for a single family.” — Mr. Jefferson's letter to 
Mr. Wythe, dated Paris, Sept. IG, 1787. 
Here is surely ample testimony as to the es- 
timation in which the olive was held in modern 
times, by those acquainted with its uses. It 
evidence is wanting as to the estimation in 
which the ancients held it, we have only to refer 
to the frequent mention made ot it in the histo- 
rical parts of the Bible, and the beautiful allu- 
sions to it so frequent by the Hebrew poets — 
to the beautiful fictions among the Greeks about 
its origin, one of which is mentioned by Apol- 
lodorus Alheniensis, who tells us how, in the 
reign of Cecrops, Neptune, smiting the earth 
with his trident, made the sea flow at his leet, 
how Minerva, determined to outdo his marine 
godship in beneficence, called on Cecrops to 
bear witness to what she was going to do, and 
made an olive tree spring from the ground ; how 
these divinities quarreled about the value of 
their respective gifts to Attica, and Jupiter, to 
settle it, appointed twelve gods to determine the 
question, which august jury of divinities gave a 
verdict in favor ot Minerva; and to the rank as- 
signed to it by Collumella among the Romans, as 
being the first among trees. Yet in the whole of 
the Qnited States, I know of but two or three in- 
stances, in which attempts have been made to 
introduce the culture of this tree. Long ago, 
indeed, the colony ot Greeks settled at New 
Smyrna, in E. Florida, had planted the olive, 
and only sixty years ago there were large trees 
marking the site of that settlement. Recently, 
AJr. Cooper, of St. Simons, and Mr. Spalding, 
ofSapelo, Georgia, have triedits cultivation, I 
think, with success; and in the garden of Mr. 
Rose, at .Macon, I saw recently a flourishing 
tree which had thus far withstood the winters 
there. 1 suppose the general impression that 
it would not endure, without injury, the cold of 
our winters, has deterred cultivators from turn- 
ing their aUeniion to it; as it is known that-the 
severe winter ot 1807 destroyed a large part of 
the olive trees in the south ot France ; and as it 
is known too, that Humboldt, in his essay on 
the geographical distribution of plants had set 
down the olive as requiring a climate with a 
mean temperature of 57 deg. 17 m., the greatest 
cold being 41 deg. 5 m. Mr. Jefferson, how- 
ever, says that when killed by frost, it will spring 
up again from the roots ; so also says Mr. Hill- 
house; and such is the experience ot Mr. 
Spalding and Mr. Cooper. If the varieties cul- 
tivated in France were the only ones to be had, 
even their comparative tenderness ought not to 
be an objection to attempting their cultivation 
here. For all experience shows, and philoso- 
phy teaches, that plants of temperate climates, 
in time, by frequent reproduction from seed, 
adapt themselves to colder climates, in which, 
at first, they invariably perished. The Melia 
Azedarach furnishes a familiar illustration of 
this fact; and applying to the well known cha- 
racteristics of the olive tree, the first and second 
of the laws of temperature, with respect to its 
influence on vegetation, as laid down by M. De 
Candolle, we may confidently conclude there- 
Irom that it will adapt itself to cur climate even 
sooner than the Melia. 
Happily, however, there are varieties to 
which this objection cannot be made. “ In the 
southern part of the Crimea, which lies between 
the latitude of 44 deg. and 46 deg. two varieties 
ot olives have been discovered, which have ex- 
isted there for centuries. They yield great crops 
and resist the frost.” 
“These olives have been cultivated in the 
R.oyal Imperial Garden of Nikita, to preserve 
and multiply the specie.s, with plants which had 
been received from Pro/ence, and have endured 
the rigorous winters of 1825 and 1826, while 
those of Provence, in the same exposure, perish- 
ed even to the root. Measures have been re- 
cently taken in France for the introduction into 
that country of these two precious varieties, 
which are capable of resisting ten or twelve de- 
grees of cold below the zero of Reaumur’s ther- 
mometer — equal to five degrees above the zero of 
Fahrenheit.”— Kenrick’s Amer. OrchardAst, "id 
ed., p. 333. 
The nurserymen of the United States incur 
great expense in introducing such exotics as the 
Cedar of Lebanon, Garoga elyptica, Paulow- 
nia imperialis, Pinus deodara, &c. &c. : — all of 
w'hich ate very beautilul trees; but when they 
are said to be very beautiful and very rare, all 
is said of them that can be, wdth truth, except 
that they are very expensive. It is true that 
purchasers are found who are willing to pay 
high prices for them ; and in this, those who 
import them, find their remuneration. By in- 
curring an expense, not more, it is believed, 
than has been incurred in the introduction of 
any of the exotics above named, the olive of 
Nikita may be introduced. And if it stand the 
rigor of our climate, as it does that of its native 
region, ma}' we not hope to see it, in a few 
years, spreading over the southern States, add- 
ing to the comforts and the wealth of our peo- 
pled Once introduced, its propagation is a 
matter so very simple, that it may be easily dis- 
seminated to any extent in a very short time. 
Such men as Dr. Cloud, of Alabama, Dr. Phil- 
lips and Mr. Afiicek, of Mississippi, I would 
suppose would not rest until they secured the 
introduction of the olive into their States, re- 
spectively. Mr. Affleck, especially, will surely 
not consider Ingleside complete, until an olive 
grove shall have been added to his establish- 
ment. 
Dampier and Lord Anson, the former as far 
back as 1688, had described the Bread Fruit, as 
a most invaluable production of the Ladrone 
Islands. In 1787, persons in London, interested 
in the West India Islands, prevailed on the 
King of Great Britain to order a ship to be fit- 
ted out at the expense of the nation, lor the pur- 
pose of introducing the Bread Fruit as an ar- 
ticle of food, into the Vvest India Islands. The 
first voyage, under Lieut. Bligb, wms a failure. 
But the object was ul'^mately accomplished. 
The result, from some cause or other, did noj 
answer the expectations of those who had taken 
an interest in it; yet they never regretted ha- 
V ing made the effort, nor the charge made by it 
on the public treasury. Is it not a matter of 
higher importance to the southern States of our 
confederacy that the Nikita olive should be pro- 
cured at the public expense'? Look over the 
list of seeds and plants brought home by the Ex- 
ploring Expedition — estimate the whole at the 
highest value that can properly be setupon them, 
and altogether, so far as real utility is concern- 
ed, they are not equal to the value of the Niki- 
ta olive. Yet how they are cherished — with 
what care and expense they are preserved ! The 
government of Great Britain incurs heavy ex- 
penses to introduce the Bread Fruit into the 
West India Islands; the government of France 
takes measures to introduce the Nikita olive 
into that country. Shall our government, es-^ 
tablished in all its branches, on principles of 
utility, and professing to be regulated in all its 
movements, exclusively by these principles, 
lag behind the old and decaying monarchies of 
Europe in enterprises like these? Shall it be 
said that in our republic, its exploring expedi- 
tions, undertaken professedly for the public 
good, shall belie the character of all our institu- 
tions, by preferring, in their collections, articles 
of show to those of utility? Jxs. Caiixk. 
Athens, Ga., March 10, 1344. 
fl^The Baltimore American says, the 
Post-Office Committee in the House of Rep- 
resentatives, it is believed, will present a bill 
reducing the rates of letter postage iofiveznd 
ten cents, for distances under and over one 
hundred miles. 
