OLIVE CULTIVATION.

Patea Mail, Volume IX, Issue 1071, 10 August 1883, Page 3

OLIVE CULTIVATION.

The "rowth of olive trees in the province (says the Ancldand Herald) is slowly but steadily extending* In many different places a few trees, which may have been planted years ago, are one by one beginning to bear fruit. If the habit is persisted in for several years to come, of putting in a few olive trees aronnd tiie homes of our settlers in country districts, the time would come insensibly when a very large number of bearing trees ■would be found in every district. If care in the meantime were taken to preserve the names of the different sorts planted, the means of extending olive cultivation, in suitable districts, would be at the disposal of our settlers, without incurring the annual trouble

of paying nursery men for the frees they require. The other clay we received from Mr James McGregor. Coromandel, a specimen of the olives grown in his garden there. The trees he has arc part of those ..brought, by Mr McEeod from Italy, somedozen years-ago. Unfortunate’y. he has lost their names, but they are both of the oil-producing varieties. The berry of one appeals to be vciy much larger than the other, but both would no doubt yield oil in abundance, if care were taken to crush the berries and extract the oil. He has informed us that the crop this season is a very large one, and that bushels have fallen off as they hecame dead ripe. In the. course of time these olive trees will become sources of wealth, but they require to be planted in greater numbers. j