| Show olavo the olive of which the oldest and one of the finest groves in the state Is at the san ban diego mission is propagated by cuttings it grows slowly at first begins tb bear at four years under favorable circumstance but does not yield a full crop until the tenth or even the twelfth year it should then return an average for the orchard of 25 gallons of df olives per tree sixty trees are planted to the acre here by the most experienced men the olives are ar c sold here at this time for 60 cents per gallon in the orchard and the few olive groves now in full bearing about here at that rate are ard worth gross goo 90 0 per acre per annum no doubt as new groves come to bear the price pice will go down but there is here an immense margin as you will perceive the finest olives I 1 have ever tasted I 1 ate at the san diego mission and the olives of this state when carefully pickled are far superior to those we get from france or spain they are of moderate size iut lut very plump juicy and full flavored pickled olives fetch hero here 75 cents per gallon I 1 am told by proprietors of olive bre orchards hards that it is more profitable to make the fruit into oil than to pickle them from five to seven gallons of ripe olives go to one gallon of oil and this is worth now 5 the tho machinery for ures dreb pressing Bing sing the oil is very simple and usually stands under a shed in the orchard the pulp is crushed from the pits and stuffed into strong rope nets which are uro then pressed the oil running down into a tub of clean water on the surface of which it collects I 1 am told that the refuse and the crushed seeds on pressure burey surey yield ielda a quantity of oil of a lower slower quality bality which Ls a boiled to clarify it ibe the first oil needs not even bleaching here the olive tree with its curious grayish green foliage does not at first seem beautiful to you but it grows on the eight and I 1 think there is no finer object than a grove of these healthful finely grown threes there are several young orchards about here and santa la barbara arbara is likely to become the center of this culture the olive is ia not particular as to soil and it does rot not here need irrigation the gopher eats the roots of the young tree but this ibis is its only enemy that you may not think I 1 have exaggerated the olive trees productiveness I 1 will add that one oue tree in this town now thirty years old bore 48 worth of olives for three years in buc succession cession another at twelve years bore over two barrels of olives at san diego a tree reputed to be seventy years old bore this year over gallops lops but bout in that old orchard which has bas been een shamefully abused some trees did not bear at all this year and this one tree may have had a rest for years past I 1 do not know the cost cast of working an olive orchard the cultivation should rifat nut cost more than that of the almond but the picking Is ia probably expensive as it would employ a number of hands children however are used in int this labor the fruit does not ripen all at once and it must be picked by hand handa 0 JN in mew new york Z tribune |
