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Results of Olive Culture.

Editor Horticulturist:—It is with no little satisfaction that I again write you, this time in regard to results obtained the present year from the olive trees reported on one year ago; for results demonstrate success or failure in any business or enterprise, whether it be production, transportation to a market, or sale of the commodity.

In the report referred to I noted the yield of a row of ten (10) trees grown from cuttings planted May 9, 1872, as averaging about six (6) gallons of fruit per tree, the best tree producing over twelve (12) gallons. These trees are now past six (6) years old, and I have just gathered the crop and find the average to be over twelve (12) gallons per tree, or more than double the yield of the previous year. The tree which gave twelve (12) gallons last year, gave twenty-two (22) this year.

In June I irrigated the trees thoroughly, in August partially, and again since picking the fruit. I pruned the small twigs from the main branches in the middle of six of the trees, making them look very thin, but resulting in an increase in quantity, and certainly in quality of fruit, over the trees which were not pruned.

There is no reason why any number of trees should not yield equally well, and I wish right here to impress on the minds of the readers of the Horticulturist (I should have said, "your invaluable magazine,") what I believe to be a fact, viz: the olive tree, planted in soil adapted to its proper cultivation, is less liable to disease, requires less irrigation, is much easier managed, and will yield a larger return than the orange or lemon tree.

I do not expect this proposition to be endorsed now by anybody, but am contented to "wait and see;" and while I am about it I might as well make a further record which I think will be verified; olive trees three years from cuttings will pay all expenses of cultivation for that year, the fourth year a hundred and fifty dollars per acre, the fifth year three hundred dollars, and the sixth year five hundred dollars per acre. These figures result from the sale of the fruit just as taken from the trees at fifty cents per gallon; by preparing the fruit for market the net result will be nearly doubled.

I have tried the various recipes for pickling the olive for market, and will forward samples to be placed before the Society at its next meeting, and if satisfactory, will send you the one used in preparing samples sent.

Now for the reasons for the "faith that is within me." I believe the State of California pays a larger sum annually for the products of the olive tree imported from foreign countries, than for the combined products of the orange and lemon, including domestic as well as foreign production, and this, too, with consumption restricted by exorbitant prices, not only of the fruit prepared for the table, but for the oil; and who can determine what proportion of this is cotton seed or peanut oil?

Many persons insist that the fruit of an orange orchard, sold at ten dol- page 58 lars per thousand, or even less, will bring a larger net return than any other production from the same area.

My curiosity led me to an examination of the relative cost per thousand of the orange and olive. I first learned that the Queen (?) olive cost wholesale, per dozen bottles, six dollars, and the number of olives in each bottle varied between forty-seven (47) and sixty-three (63), or an average of fifty-five in each, or a fraction less than ten dollars per thousand, wholesale cost. These were much larger than our domestic or Mission olive.

Curiosity did not flag till I had selected and packed several bottles—duplicates of the foreign—with olives of my own production.

The average number in a dozen bottles was a hundred and ten (110). To bring the olive within the reach of all, suppose we sell them at $3.50 per dozen, instead of $6; every thousand olives then will bring $250, and it takes but a small tree to bear ten thousand olives.

True, the "Queen" olive is larger than those now cultivated here, but I venture to say there is very little more meat on one of them than on a fair sized Mission olive; and besides, the domestic olive is nearly a freestone, the flesh readily separating from the pit, and for these reasons are much to be preferred.

When housekeepers consider that they pay about as much per dozen for imported olives as they do for oranges, and that they are about as much pit as meat, they will cast about to see if something just as good or better cannot be purchased at a less price.

It is evident that the Queen olive must remain a luxury to be indulged in only by those who are able to gnaw a foreign production.

This fruit should not be a luxury, but a staple article of family consumption.

The people inhabiting the olive-producing portions of Europe rarely taste meat, the olive almost entirely supplying its place. As an article of wholesome diet their cultivation should be encouraged.

To-day I saw eleven (11) gallons of splendid olives picked from a tree only four (4) years old from the cutting. This tree is in my brother's (W. C. Kimball's) orchard.

By an article in the Rural Press, I observe that the "Cocus olio" has ceased to frighten Mr. Cooper, of Santa Barbara, indicated by pushing his investigations, and investments into the manufacture and introduction of pure oil. I thought so, and congratulate him on his conversion.

It may not be amiss to say that the orchard at Mission San Diego is now worse than neglected; and while examining it a few days ago I noticed quite a number of trees which had been killed this year.

An Italian firm in San Diego have bought all the olives they could, paying fifty cents per gallon, fresh from the trees. I think no prepared olives have been sold at less than a dollar per gallon, wholesale, this year, this being about one-third the price paid for the imported article.

I hope the Society may encourage page 59 the planting of the olive in all of our foot hill country; it will stand frost and snow. No poor man can afford to be without an olive orchard.