Page:A Practical Treatise on Olive Culture, Oil Making and Olive Pickling.djvu/27

 February 21st, 1872. At four years I gathered from some of the trees over two gallons of berries. In 1878 over thirty gallons each off a few of the best trees, the orchard then being only six years old.

"The newness and richness of our soil will probably give, the first fifty years, double the best results given in the oil countries of Europe."

From the San Francisco Evening Bulletin, May 3, 1887: "It is often stated that the olive tree will not bear until its seventh or eighth year. Capt. Guy E. Grosse, of Santa Rosa, thinks that on his mountain ranch may be found proof satisfactory that such is not the case. Out of his 500 olive trees, planted four years ago, 461 are in full bloom and promise a good yield. Further and successful refutation of the statement concerning the maturity age of the olive may be found in this city. On A. B. Ware's premises is an olive tree four and one half years old which bore a good crop last year.—Sonoma Democrat."

Similar affirmations have been made by so many other parties who have engaged in olive culture in California that it seems unreasonable to doubt it any more. It leads us to the belief that those who have olive trees here bearing nothing, or but a few small berries, at an advanced age, must have reproduced them from cuttings taken from trees raised from the seed and which were never grafted.

That the fact of the early bearing mentioned