Page:The Olive Its Culture in Theory and Practice.djvu/113

Rh years are the fruit branches, those of one year will bear the following season.

The lower and horizontal branches produce the fruit in an olive. So a very general rule for pruning would be to preserve all lateral branches possible, with a due regard to the proportion of the crown, and to cut away those that are perpendicular to the trunk. The branches called "gluttons" are peculiar to the cultivated tree and need to be cut away, as they merely rob the plant of just so much vitality, without any compensation whatever. The glutton is a degenerated fruit branch, or one that appears where a fruit branch should be. They may be recognized by the speed with which they grow, by the broadness of their base, and by the appearance of the bark which, though green, is not smooth and shining, but rough and seamed. In shape also they are not rounded, but flattened on one side or the other. The color of the bark on the lower side is likewise of a dark brown. These distinctive characteristics are consequent to the over abundant flow of the sap, which the glutton draws to itself.

Though every two years is generally considered often enough to thoroughly prune an olive, there is abundant work for the knife each year after the crop is gathered, in taking off the dead, weak, and sickly branches, to the end that the sap may go to fruit, and not be obliged to keep useless wood in life. The tree so treated will be better able to resist frost, will bloom and yield more heavily, and its olives will contain more oil than do those of one that does not receive this care.

The olive is exceedingly subject to a species of dry rot, and unskillful pruning may actually cause it.

Branches should be cut perpendicularly to the trunk, and from the lower side to the upper, as otherwise, in falling, a strip of bark is apt to be carried away and a grievous wound caused to the tree. The cut should never force the bark out but always press it in.

It is better to avoid taking off large limbs, as the surface exposed