Page:The Olive Its Culture in Theory and Practice.djvu/75

Rh Some writers suggest that they should be fed to domestic fowls as the best way to strip them; and passing them through a goat is said to be the best mode of all. Olive seeds unstripped never germinate in less than eight, nine and twelve months, and when the berries are under ripe even in two years, and sometimes not at all. Care should be taken in selecting berries for seed, to choose only such as are thoroughly ripe.

To save loss of time, and assure oneself of there being a seed in the olive, break it with a hammer, strike a single light blow so as not to injure the seed, or a still better but slower way is to use a vice. So treated the buds will come out in thirty to forty days. For bed, dig a foot deep, manure it richly, plant the cracked seeds at a depth of two inches and about four or five inches apart. Where there is no danger of winter frosts, the planting may be done in October and November, but where this drawback is feared, February and March would be the better months. Careful cultivation is necessary. When the trees are six to eight inches high, that is, when about a year old, they should be transferred into a nursery. In transplanting, the roots injured in the process should be trimmed down, and the lower one-third of the tap root cut off at the point where it begins to grow noticeably small. Also the lateral branches should be cut off, leaving only a leaf on the main stem where the branch intersected. This increases the growth of the young plant and makes a straighter and finer trunk. If the laterals are left on, they receive the nourishment first from the roots to the detriment of the plant. If cut off later, as must be done, the wounds to the tree are larger, and so the tree is harmed. The leaves must be left on, as they fill the necessary office of absorbing the carbonic acid, so necessary to the life of the plant. With the young tree raised from a cutting, on the other hand, it is unnecessary to take off the lateral branches, the aim being to stimulate root making; the cutting having none.

In transplanting to permanent position from the nursery, there