Page:The Olive Its Culture in Theory and Practice.djvu/108

88 exposes much surface to the sun, which is the object desired. The olive produces fruit on two years wood only. This point the pruner should always bear in mind, and direct his efforts to multiply these shoots in order to increase production.

The aim should be to distribute the sap equally throughout; keep the extension of branches within proper limits, and give air to the interior. Take out the dead wood and fruitless branches, called "gluttons" because they take to themselves the best forces of the tree. Cut out those parts that are not sound or are subject to canker. Do not allow the branches to cross each other; favor new shoots by lateral pruning when there are vacant places to fill. In Provence, contrary to the custom elsewhere, they prune their trees each year, keeping them near the ground. This practice besides rendering the fruit more abundant and fine, permits a more careful gathering by hand. The trees thus treated will not last so long it is true, but this inconvenience is largely compensated by the other advantages attending this mode of pruning.

The olive has precisely the same mode of vegetation as the peach, with this difference only, that new shoots are easily formed from old wood. The branches and roots of a tree are proportional, contributing mutually to the growth of each other, and therefore the one suffers if the other is cut. If the strong branches of a vigorous tree are pruned very long, the roots are strengthened, the said branches increased in size, the tree runs to wood and does not fructify. If on the contrary they are pruned very short, and the lesser branches taken off also, the tree is weakened and the roots with it. It is necessary to take off the lesser branches of a vigorous olive tree, and also the strong branches to a reasonable length, always with the idea of preserving the proportion between the roots and branches.

The tree is nourished by its sap; this commences to move with the increase of temperature in Spring, generally in March. Drawn from the soil by the roots, it circulates throughout the tree with increasing freedom as it approaches the extremities, where the tender twigs