Trees to be set out on the quincunx the olives to be forty-four feet apart one way and thirty the other. This will give a far better result than crowding an acre with over a hundred olives trees. The olive under favorable conditions is a prolific bearer but too much crowding stunts the trees and exhausts the soil. The result is seen in weak and puny trees that bear no fruit. The olive must have sunshine and ventilation and it cannot get it in an orchard where there are one hundred trees to the acre. For a few years all will go well, and then about the time that the trees should give a good return it will be found that the branches interlock and that the orchard forms so dense a mass of foliage that the sun cannot penetrate it, and half the trees will have to be taken out, and replanted some where else, and there will be the loss of about five year's time resulting from cutting back well grown trees; this would be in consequence of crowding on level ground, but on hilly land, where the olives rise in tiers, one above the other, an acre will readily carry eighty trees.
The consociation of the olive with other fruits will prove beneficial from every point of view. The olive crop is an inconstant one, the natural tendency of the tree is to only bear heavily every other year, it has many enemies, and until the fruit has formed, nothing is assured.
Too great heat at the critical period of blossoming may be fatal to the hopes of an abundant yield and varying seasons will give different results. The Italians have an expressive proverb which says:
"If the olive buds in April,
You will gather by the barrel;
If in May appear the buds,
You will gather by measureful.
But if it lingers until June,
The harvest will be but a fistfull."
Again,
"Golden is the olive of the early budding,
Silver that which comes after,
The late one is worth nothing."
