A Practical Treatise on Olive Culture, Oil Making and Olive Pickling/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III.
GENERAL CARE.
If, in the cultivation of the olive tree, one were to be guided by the ancient beliefs that have come down to us through the ages, it would appear that when once planted it can be left to take care of itself.
Virgil says in his Georgics that the olive tree needs no cultivation, and Pliny repeats with him that it should not be given too much care.
Columelle affirms also that of all trees the olive is the one which requires the least work and the least manuring. He does not, however, recommend an absolute abandonment of "the first of all trees," as he calls it, but judges that it is the tree par excellence that can stand neglect and bad treatment better than any other.
It has nevertheless been since recognized that the olive tree, though by no means exacting, needs a certain amount of care, especially as regards pruning. It might be said, however, in connection with this, that in certain olive regions of Europe, Africa and Asia, there are still many olive trees that are never pruned and receive no care whatever.
It is thus that we read in Dr. Thomson^s "The Land and The Book:"
"This tree requires but little labor or care of any kind, and, if long neglected, will revive again when the ground is dug or ploughed, and begin afresh to yield as before. Vineyards forsaken die out almost immediately; and mulberry orchards neglected run rapidly to ruin; but not so the olive. I saw the desolate hills of Jebel-El-Alah, above Antioch, covered with these groves, although no one had paid attention to them for half a century. Large trees, in a good season, will yield from ten to fifteen gallons of oil. No wonder it is so highly prized."
Reynaud tells us that in the south of France the olive tree gives abundant product without the effort of a careful and costly cultivation. "Which is the tree," says he, "which, like it, demands so little care, so little cultivating, so little manuring!"
Other modern writers, on the contrary, insist that the olive tree should be carefully worked, pruned and manured.
Between these two extreme views it is well to allow ourselves to be guided, to a certain extent, by the experience of past generations, which is often transmitted to us under the form of proverbs. It is thus that we have been cradled in our younger days by such old sayings as: "An olive tree requires a wise man at its foot and a fool at its head;" and yet: "Make me poor and I will make thee rich;" from which we should infer that the tree is not so much in need of a costly stirring of the soil as it is of a careful pruning.
The caution that is thus recommended to us, as regards to the cultivation of the soil around the olive tree, is in a certain measure the natural consequence of the rocky and steep situations where it is most generally found in Europe, and where the plows cannot find easy access. In such places, where plowing is out of the question, two or three hoeings a year, a few feet around the tree, will be found sufficient to ensure its rapid development. Eugenio Ricci says to this effect; "The soil should be dry and stony, and on a slope. There should be no other cultivation except occasionally to remove the grass and loosen the soil. At least twice a year the land should be worked with the hoe for three feet around the tree, which process should, every second year, be preceded by a manuring."
If olive trees are planted in arable lands, then the heavier the soil the oftener it has to be stirred, while on light soils it can be done less frequently. It is thus evident that the cultivation of the olive tree should not be identical in all soils, and it belongs to each olive grower to apply the most suitable method as per the character and constitution of his land.
Manuring the olive tree meets with no opponent, for no one could ignore the advantages it presents.
As for pruning there are many divergent opinions. An olive tree never pruned bears heavily one year, and gives but little fruit in the year following, as if it needs rest for its laborious efforts; but by judicious pruning it is brought to give regular yearly crops.
Du Breuil tells us on that subject that the berries of the olive that is not pruned are very numerous, and that they remain on the tree until the end of winter, so that during the fertile years all the sap has gone to supply their growth preventing new bearing branches from forming for the following year. It is thus that the fructification of the olive trees not pruned is most always biennial.
The pruning of the olive tree should have mostly for its object to decrease the height of its head so as to render the picking of the crop more easy; to give to that head such a form as to allow light and ventilation in all its parts; to suppress every year a certain number of the bearing branches so that the sap can feed better those that remain, and that by the development of new branches it may assure a good average crop every year.
Young olive trees are generally left to themselves for the first two years following their planting, pruning being applied only in their third.
Riondet recommends to direct the tree in such a manner as to avoid the ultimate necessity of having to suppress a large branch or to inflict a big wound upon it. It will be sufficient to that effect to clear the tree of the small branches that can no more bear fruit.
Coutance guards us against the unreasonable pruning that seems to be recommended by the proverb "a wise man at its foot, a fool at its head," though he would rather prefer it to a complete abandonment. He simply recommends the suppression of all dead wood, the cutting of the branches that prevent light and air from circulating into the center of the tree, the giving it a regular shape, and the keeping it from growing too high, which would result in the sterility of the lower parts and would render the gathering of the fruit more difficult.
The suckers that grow continually from the base of the tree should be removed at intervals; and, while pruning, it should be borne in mind that the horizontal branches and those turning down are the most productive.
Considering the heavy summer winds experienced on the Pacific Coast it is highly advisable to form the trees low; they are thus less likely to be damaged and can be cleaned with washes against insect pests with more facility. Moreover, by keeping them so, the trunk develops with more force, the crops come quicker, are more abundant, and the pruning as well as the gathering of the crops is easier and more economical; all reasons that speak in the most eloquent language in favor of this protective and benieficial method.