Page:The Olive Its Culture in Theory and Practice.djvu/118

96 more severe measure of cutting back. It is necessary to clean up the trees with the knife after the crop is in, every year, say in January or February, and if the operation is carried a little further, and the tree is really pruned every year, it will be found advantageous.

If the regular pruning is deferred to periods of two or three years, the wounds given the tree have to be so much the larger, and are so much the more difficult to recover from, or detract so much from the force of the tree. Then also, the season after a full pruning is one of a very light crop, making a very heavy crop the second year. This results in making either a very expensive crop to gather, that is if it is done carefully, or if not, by being done hurriedly, the branches are broken and damaged, and the prospect of the next years fruitage is destroyed.

The olive is sometimes called a biennial, but a moments reflection must convince anyone familiar with the tree, that it is an annual. Does it not make a yearly effort to flower and fruit? Then encourage it and the result will be an annual crop. Annual pruning will give a moderate crop every year, will distribute the labor of pruning and harvesting more evenly, and will be most advantageous to the trees.

Light pruning necessitates heavy manuring in order to successfully carry the excess of wood and branches. Real scientific pruning can be safely said to be almost unknown. There are more humbugs in this branch of horticulture, than in any other. Because a certain line of treatment may be desirable in a given locality, it does not follow that it is so in another. Certainly a very undesirable arrangement would be that the pruner should have the wood, as he then sets to work and makes all he can, utterly regardless of the result to the trees.

Successful pruning is founded upon the following propositions:

First: That the olive fruits on two years old wood only.

Second: That the flowers do not develop except when exposed to the sun for a number of hours of the day.