Page:A Practical Treatise on Olive Culture, Oil Making and Olive Pickling.djvu/18

 when the cutting from a grafted tree is derived from a point below the place where grafting was effected.

These cuttings can be made like those of a vine or any other cutting, only with this difference that the olive tree being an evergreen, one or more sets of leaves should be left on.

It is difficult safely to cut the large truncheons because, when taken from the tree or even when cut a little to freshen the butt-end at plantation, there is danger of crushing the bark, which has the eflfect of imperiling their starting and which, should they grow, may induce rot. To plant them directly in permanent sites is to run the risk of losing a great many, as has happened to several parties I could name. If, on the other hand, they are placed in nursery in preference to much smaller cuttings, their tap-root will be so developed, even only after a year of stay therein, that it will be necessary to cut it back when they are to be transplanted, which will reduce their ultimate chances of growth and will at least make them languid and sickly for a year or two. But, the smaller the cuttings are when placed in the nursery, the less will be the chances at transplantation within a year of disturbing their root system which will necessarily be less developed.

These smaller cuttings, from six to eight inches long, are generally raised in boxes under glass, where they take very readily; or in open ground in nursery when from eight to twelve