Page:A Practical Treatise on Olive Culture, Oil Making and Olive Pickling.djvu/21

 setting out, and that they have formed a beautiful root system.

Mr. Frank A. Kimbal, of National City, San Diego County, tells us also, that he has in no case succeeded with large cuttings, and that he has obtained but meagre results in planting twenty inches deep. He tried with all kinds of cuttings, from three feet down to eight and ten inches only, and he finds the latter preferable.

The mode thus recommended by Mr. Klee, by Mr. Kimbal and others, is in perfect harmony with what I have done, and which has enabled me to obtain an excellent root system in less than a year. Having had frequent occasions to compare it with others, I do not hesitate to pronounce it as the one method capable of producing most vigorous trees, which, within four or five years, will be from ten to twelve feet high, and will begin to produce a few gallons of olives.

I have knowledge of the fact that several persons have planted olive cuttings in nursery, and have met but with very meagre results. I think I can give them possibly the reason for it.

The olive, as already said, is an evergreen tree. It has two very distinct yearly vegetations, one called the spring vegetation, the other the fall vegetation. It is thus, that under our fine and quite exceptional climate, where the winters are frequently very mild, its vegetation knows scarcely any cessation. If the cuttings are not taken from the tree during one of those short periods of