Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/108

80 three subtractions is equally divided between land-lord and labourer.

If the landlord has no ready money, the sum advanced by him to the labourer has to be raised on the security of the ensuing harvest; if the harvest fails, he has to borrow again on the next harvest. Without such expedients business could not be carried on in a country in which there is so limited a circulation of specie, and in which Banks and Bills of Exchange are unknown. If the means of transport were improved, and the roads more safe from robbers, the landlord would of course be able to convert his crops into ready money at a distant market, instead of pawning them in advance.

M. L—— has planted a large number of olives on his property, which he hopes to cultivate accord- ing to the system adopted in the South of France. I learnt from him and other Greek merchants here, the following particulars respecting the cultivation of the olive-tree in Mytilene.

It appears that the natives are so ignorant and indolent that they take little pains to improve what nature has bestowed so abundantly, for the olive-tree grows wild all over the island. The cultivated tree is usually grafted on a young vigorous wild stock. Olives like a rich clay; they flourish on the sides of hills and in valleys formed by the alluvial deposit from mountains; but there should always be a free circulation of air. On the sides of the hills the soil is cleared, or défriché, for the plantation in the following manner:—It is cut into terraces, which are supported by walls, to prevent the earth from being carried away from the roots.