Page:A Practical Treatise on Olive Culture, Oil Making and Olive Pickling.djvu/11

 Parmentier, who during the last century was instrumental in the introduction of the potato into France. He says: "Of all the trees that the industry of men has made profitable, the olive tree deserves, without contradiction, the very first place."

It is thus on the Mount Ararat, on the mountains mentioned by Nehemiah, on the summits of the Acropolis, on Mount Olympus, on the Girapetra Mountains, on the steep declivities of the Holy Mount, on Mount Alban, on the rough and stony spots selected by the Phoceans, on the sterile and rocky places recommended by Virgil that the ollve tree has found the kind of soil most propitious to its robust constitution.

Has the tree or the nature of the soil changed since so that we may wisely disregard the testimony of the ancients? Is there anything to encourage us now to plant the olive tree on a richer or a different soil from that of its historic and traditional growth?

In the works of the most reputed modern writers we find full and satisfactory assurance that the kind of soil cited by the ancients is the most favorable to the growth and profitable culture of the olive tree. I will here give a few citations:

Riondet, p 2. The olive tree requires a warm but temperate climate. It dreads equally extreme cold and excessive heat. In the north of Europe its progress is checked by cold weather;