Olive Culture in California.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 221, 24 September 1887, Page 7

Olive Culture in California.

The Spanish fathers domesticated the olive and grape and wheat, on the lands around the Missions they established in California, more than a hundred years ago. Their motive was to secure a supply of the bread, wine and oil used in the sacraments of the church, and out of this pious purpose sprang three leading material industries of modern California. Mr Ellwood Cooper, seeking California for the betterment of his health, noted the ancient olive trees shading 1 the vuined gardens of the old Missions, and was tempted to try the commercial value of the olive. The world knows the success of his experiment, and it has roused such interest that many hundred thousand olive trees are now growing in this State, and California will soon divide with the slopes of the Mediterranean the pleasures and profits of producing this luxurious oil. Joaquin M iller relates that, stopping recently in a wayside farm-house in Alameda county, near Mission San Jose, he found the children at lunch dipping their bread in a dish of olive oil, and upon inquiry learned that it was made on the place and was preferred to cream and butter by old and young. So, two thousand years ago, did the children at the foot of the Mount of Olives dip their unleavened bread in this sweet oil, and its use amongst the Hebrews, in preference to the grease of the prohibited pig, laid the foundation of that majestic physical type which, in the sons and daughters of Abraham, has survived all vicissitudes to be the puzzle of the modern world,and the pride of its most ancient race.

At the district meeting of the Manchester Unity of Oddfellows at Dunedin, the report submitted showed a slight increase in the number of members. The total value of the district is set down at £44,278. The average amount per member paid for sickness was 7s 9|d. The returns of the postal savings banks of Canada at the close of the financial year show a sum of nearly 20,000, 0CH01., standing at the credit of over 90,000 depositors. The amount of deposits in the savings branches of the chartered banks during the last financial year has increased by 6,000,000d01. as compared with the returns of the previous year.