The Olive Its Culture in Theory and Practice/Chapter 7
Consociation
CHAPTER VII.
"Marry the olive and the vine."
The soil which suits the vine is also good for the olive. This is what is seen throughout the greater part of Italy; there they say the olive does not prosper in celibacy. The deep soils can well support both. Consociation offers the great advantage of getting some return from the soil during the lengthened youth of this tree, which when it has grown to a sufficient size, the vine plot commences to age, and, disappearing by degrees, leaves the olive sole occupant of the soil. When the olives grow to a large size, and are planted near to each other, or in places where the ground is poor, other crops are not usually grown. With these two exceptions, the ground under the trees is generally utilized. At Grasse and Nice, they associate together the olive and the fig, and other fruit trees; as also the vine. In such cases the trees are planted in rows, about twenty feet apart, and the intervening space is sown one year in beans, or maize, and the next year in corn. The Inspector General of the Government Plantations of France says: This system cannot be sufficiently applauded, both because, in many years of failure, all the interest of the capital in the ground would not be lost, and because the olive trees would benefit from the earth given to the other plants; and even, because the more distant the trees are planted in the rows, the more are they loaded with fruit, and pay better.
Signor Cappi also says: This culture may very well exist, and has been used in various provinces of Italy, especially in vast plains, with excellent results. On plains they should be planted twenty-five feet apart, and not less than fifty feet between the rows if vines are cultivated. Experience, some say, has shown that the olive cultivated alone, in rich soil grows vigorously; makes each year a number of new shoots, but gives little fruit, as the sap being too active to fix the blossom, is carried to the extremities, and the flower falls. To obtain good trees quickly, one should never sow underneath them at first, but however afterwards, to get good fruit it is advantageous to do so; but only then the year of the crop. Thus one should prune, manure, and cultivate to force shoots or young wood to bear fruit.
The season following, sow under the trees to moderate the flow of the sap, stay the growth of wood, and cause the blossom to set. In an indifferent soil this would be hurtful, as there is never an excess of vegetation. However, in similar conditions, in place of sowing an exhausting cereal, they sow vegetables, beans, lupins or peas. Green crops, as manure, are often dug in, and thus the olive during summer, finds sufficient subsistence to help it to bring a crop to maturity.
In growing other crops with the olive, it derives benefit from the frequent labor that the ground receives in their cultivation, as it loves to vegetate in a soil often stirred and largely manured. Few trees to the acre will produce a much better result than many.
The olive crop is a precarious one and therefore he will be wise who associates his olives with other fruits, that he may have a harvest. For level ground an acre can easily carry forty seven olives, forty seven fruit trees, such as figs, peaches, prunes, mulberries or whatever may be suitable to the neighborhood and three hundred and two vines, thus:
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."
The earlier the olive buds, the earlier it flowers, the quicker the olives grow fat, the better they encounter the inclemencies of the season and the better secured is the product.
Consociation pays because as the olive comes to full fruiting slowly, it offers a new mode of lessening the unproductiveness of the early years and of reducing the expenses of the olive orchard. It may endure only until the olive comes into bearing or may be permanent.
The question of consociation or not, depends upon climate, soil and exposure. In very steep, stony, shallow ground, with a rocky subsoil, sandy or in any way arid soil, it is advisable to undertake only the cultivation of the olive, because the other plants would succeed badly and would not pay for the necessary attention.
On the other hand fertile and rather level lands permit the fruitful presence of other plants, while the olive enjoys greater space and light, both being indispensable elements to its prosperous life and copious production. Since the olive is more secure as to its crop, south of its region as against climatic dangers, and to the north, runs greater risks of loss of crop because it matures late and the tree itself may suffer or even be killed by frosts, it follows that consociation in such countries (giving to the olive all the light) contributes to the more secure ripening of the fruit and to its greater production. In the case of loss of crop or trees, there is something left to the husband-man. Reasons therefore for the consociation of the vine are:
1st—Vines come to fruit in the third year and to maturity in the fifth. This is an advantage from the side of expense and return on capital.
2d—The vine can be planted with the same preparatory labor as the olive.
3d—Cultivating the vine at least three times during the year, is an indirect benefit to the olive, the more so as the epochs of these labors occur at seasons opportune for both plants.
4th—The heavy work of pruning and harvest can be done at different times so that they do not interfere with one another. In fact the pruning of the vine may precede that of the olive and the vintage comes when the olive begins to turn. Thus the consociate cultivation of the olive and vine will enable one to keep the same laboring force right through the year and avoid the constant shifting of hands which is so great a drawback.
5th—The olive and vine being so different in size, the tree only affects unfavorably the nearest vines.
6th—Being both potash plants they prosper in the same land and are benefitted by the same manure.
7th—If the consociation is temporary, the vines will gradually pass away by the time the olive, at thirty years, has reached its normal development, but will have in the meantime contributed largely to pay the expenses of the place if they have not entirely done so, and if the consociation is permanent a certain number of vines are up-rooted and a broad belt left to olives.