Page:The Olive Its Culture in Theory and Practice.djvu/117

Rh When the trees are too near together, the ground is unable to sustain so many and it is necessary to transplant a portion of them. When this necessity is apparent every third, or every other tree will have to come out. This is likely to be the experience of many olive growers in this State. Fortunately the tree will bear it.

The first step is to cut the tree down to the crotch leaving four arms or stumps, the nucleus of the future primary branches of the new tree. It is then dug up with as much earth as possible and transported to the hole already prepared for it. In the spring of 1883, fifteen hundred olive trees between ten and twenty years of age were thus transplanted on the Quito Farm, with a loss of only six trees. When the sap has become corrupted it is necessary to take off one of the primary or mother branches in order to check the tendency to make only wood. When the trees have been damaged by the proximity of others prejudicial to them, such as the pine or the cork oak (the latter breeds a worm, about its roots which is fatal to the olive) the weakly parts will have to be severely pruned. When they are attacked by an infinity of little shell like warts which spread up from the trunk to the lower branches, there is no remedy but to cut the tree down to the crotch and allow it to begin over again. But it must not be forgotten that this treatment is an extreme measure, and only to be availed of when all others have failed.

The primary, or mother branches of an olive, are its arms, and are not to be lopped off without a good and sufficient reason. Although the tree may grow and flourish for many years, its new branches never will have the strength and exuberence of their predecessors.

That one of these branches appears to be ailing, is not cause enough to cut it off. Manuring and cultivating about the tree may give it all that it needs. Watch it till spring, and then if it fails to flower, it had better be condemned.

Thus we have seen that in pruning there are three different degrees, the cleaning, or light pruning; the pruning itself, and the