Page:The Olive Its Culture in Theory and Practice.djvu/78

64 method is preferred to any other. It is desirable that the cutting should be entirely covered with earth, as otherwise the sun will check and burn it, so as to make any good result impossible.

For California orchards, where as speedy an issue as possible is desired, if two cuttings are planted together in the spot where the future tree is intended to grow, the outcome will probably prove satisfactory. The two cuttings should give birth to at least one tree, and this never being disturbed by transplanting, will make an extraordinary growth. Should more than one tree make its appearance, the extra ones may be used to supply those that fail altogether.

The smaller the cutting the greater is the necessity for planting it horizontally.

The question is often asked, how long before the olive will bear fruit? In answer to this, it may be said, that it depends very much upon the size of the wood planted. A truncheon sometimes bears in the following year from that in which it was put into the ground, and generally in the third year. But it must be well understood that it is at the expense of the tree. Cuttings, insomuch as they are so near the surface of the ground, demand greater care than truncheons, being exposed to danger from animals and frost. But if they survive these early perils, the vigorous shoots of the cutting soon equal the truncheon in size, and at the end of fifteen years pass it in the race. The tree grown from a cutting is lustier, better shaped, and more productive than that from a truncheon. The latter solely has the advantage of bearing more fruit in its youth, but it is at the expense of its growth.

An olive truncheon, is a limb of the thickness of a mans arm, and from seven to ten feet in length, of new smooth wood, free from warts or scratches, the most vigorous and healthy scion of the tree it is proposed to reproduce.

From this, it will be evident how difficult and costly it is, to