Page:The Olive Its Culture in Theory and Practice.djvu/17

Rh the Italian and Californian trees of a given age. A ten year old tree in California is much larger in every way than its Italian counterpart. Hence, as was to be expected, its production is also greater.

Our experience with the olive is as yet largely experimental. But we cannot hope to make a high grade of oil unless we first plant in favorable situations olives of superior qualifications as oil producers. It will be the endeavor of the writer to indicate in the following chapter which these varieties are, together with their characteristics.

The age of the olive tree is known to be very great, It may be said that well cared for trees will live three hundred years. From the first to the twelfth is the period of its infancy, from the thirteenth to the thirtieth its youth, from the thirty-first to the fiftieth a period of growth, and from the fifty-first to the three hundredth the possible period of its life.

Its vitality is really wonderful, and it seems as though it would actually live forever were it not for the attacks of its numerous and persistent enemies, who bore holes in its bark, eat out its heart, kill its branches and feed on its leaves and fruit; but so great is its hold on life that after all this has occurred, if the dead and dying tree be cut down close to the ground, its vigorous root will give birth to still another tree. It varies greatly in size. In Spain, Nijar, Almeria, one was seen that four feet from the ground measured nine feet nine inches in circumference, and there are well authenticated reports of trees attaining even a larger growth, but of course it is superfluous to say that such a size is abnormal. What return may we expect from an olive plantation? This is a question that is often asked and one of vital interest.

In Spain olives will average, taking the country over, thirty-two trees to the acre, and in estimating for oil it is customary to reckon every six trees as good for four gallons of oil. Here we may safely calculate on our trees, averaging one year with another, a gallon of