Page:A Practical Treatise on Olive Culture, Oil Making and Olive Pickling.djvu/31

 fool at its head;" and yet: "Make me poor and I will make thee rich;" from which we should infer that the tree is not so much in need of a costly stirring of the soil as it is of a careful pruning.

The caution that is thus recommended to us, as regards to the cultivation of the soil around the olive tree, is in a certain measure the natural consequence of the rocky and steep situations where it is most generally found in Europe, and where the plows cannot find easy access. In such places, where plowing is out of the question, two or three hoeings a year, a few feet around the tree, will be found sufficient to ensure its rapid development. Eugenio Ricci says to this effect; "The soil should be dry and stony, and on a slope. There should be no other cultivation except occasionally to remove the grass and loosen the soil. At least twice a year the land should be worked with the hoe for three feet around the tree, which process should, every second year, be preceded by a manuring."

If olive trees are planted in arable lands, then the heavier the soil the oftener it has to be stirred, while on light soils it can be done less frequently. It is thus evident that the cultivation of the olive tree should not be identical in all soils, and it belongs to each olive grower to apply the most suitable method as per the character and constitution of his land.

Manuring the olive tree meets with no