Page:A Practical Treatise on Olive Culture, Oil Making and Olive Pickling.djvu/16

 wait ten or twelve years for the product, as against four or five years by the second?

Moreover, grafting which becomes indispensable when the tree is raised from the seed, giving it thus additional vigor, can just as well, if so desired, be applied to the tree grown from the cutting without losing thereby the advantages derived from this last mode of reproduction.

Coutance, who pronounces himself in favor of the seed, tells us that the plant has to remain at least seven years in nursery, and that after being grafted it requires three more years before it begins to bear fruit.

Reynaud tells us also that he has seen in France, in the county of Ardeche, as also at Cannes and in the Hyera Islands olive trees raised from seed; that they were ready to be grafted, but that this result had required seven years. He however adds that the reproduction of the tree by seed has been found so slow that it seems puerile to have recourse to it.

Amoureux affirms that this method is of an excessive slowness and of very little practical use.

Charles Etienne and Liebault concur in saying that it is time and money lost to employ this method.

In Mr. Elwood Cooper's treatise on Olive culture we also find that when the tree is raised from seed it has to remain seven years in the nursery, but that when grown from the cutting it bears as early in Europe as it does in California.