Page:A Practical Treatise on Olive Culture, Oil Making and Olive Pickling.djvu/74

 combines the best foreign and home experience, and which I have endeavored to make brief, clear and concise, will be instrumental in helping, to a certain extent, the development of olive culture in California, for it presents advantages that may be looked for in vain in any other agricultural pursuit.

Columelle knew what he was about when he proclaimed the olive tree "the first of all trees," and Parmentier felt himself well justified in saying many generations after, "of all trees that the industry of man has made profitable, the olive tree deserves, without contradiction, the very first place." I, therefore, consider it unnecessary to dwell any longer on a point on which all the best agriculturists, ancient and modern, fully concur, and I will confine myself to passing briefly in review the main reasons, given more extensively in the previous chapters, that contribute to give it this universal reputation.

In the first place the hill, or mountain lands, dry and rocky, which appear to be the most propitious for the robust constitution of the olive tree can be bought in California at prices ranging much below those necessary for the culture of other fruit trees or vines.

The cost of planting on such lands and care of the trees during the first year will hardly reach $5 per acre; the purchase of one year old rooted cuttings will not exceed from $10 to $15 per acre, and the annual care will be less than $5