Page:A Practical Treatise on Olive Culture, Oil Making and Olive Pickling.djvu/49

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kinds and possesses the additional advantage, in common with a few others, that it never grows large, thus the fruit is easily gathered.

Let us add to the credit of the Picholine that the much lamented Mr. B. B. Redding, while in Europe many years ago, studied most carefully the question of the olive tree. After many careful researches and comparisons he pronounced in favor of the Picholine as the variety that seemed to be most likely to give the best results in the California soil and climate. It is to him mostly that we are indebted for having this most excellent variety among us.

Let us see now what has been said of the Mission.

Pohndorff. The California Mission olive is the Cornicabra Cornezuelo variety, which requires more heat than any other. In the northern oil zone of Spain, the Cornicabra tree of great size is called Azebuche, or wild olive tree, for the reason that the fruit does not ripen there. The regions of Saragossa and Salamanca in Spain, are not warm enough to allow the fruit of the Cornicabra—known in California under the name of the Mission—to mature. In certain parts of our State, at San Diego for instance, the fruit of the Cornicabra ripens as early as the end of October.

W, G. Klee, of the University of California, tells us that when, the mission fathers first landed in California, they brought with them two varieties of olives, one of which especially has been