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Show , ' 168 EMIGRANT'S GUIDE. wall and otherwise in the warmest part of the garden. It might be, perh~ps, concluded frol!l this_ example, that. if the olive cou!d thuii survive the rigours of wmte~ m the g~rd.en, 1t would .do also ~~ other places. This may vegetate m a langmshmg. state, but 1s v~ry d1fferent from the vegetation necessary. for be?efic1al colture. ~. The co~clu· sion drawn from the mere possible existence of the olive, are l1able to produce the same error that would be made, if it was pretended that the province of Languedoc was as proper for the production of the orange tree, as Nice, Hieres, Toulon, and lower Rousillon; whilst in the former country the orange tree is only cultivated in some gardens, and near the latter places in open air. Exceptions do not destroy a general law, and the exceptions themselves, in this case, rises from favourable situations producing tbe necess:uy shelters. The cultivated orange tree in the foregoing places, grows at the southern foot of very elevated and steep mountains. But in places where the necessary shelters are at a distance, neither the orange or olive tree can exist : this is the real reason why the latter does not grow beyond Montelimar in advancing north, nor beyoml Carcassonne, following the chain of mountains of lower Languedoc. The olive demands a shelter from the winds of the north, independently of its geographical position:t This is so true, that in many parts of Provence and Languedoc, where the olive tree is most abundant, ' there are considerable surfaces where the tree will not exist. Upon many farms the tree languishes visioJy each year, where dearing the land has diminished the elevation of the shelter, and permitted the north winds to breathe their frozen air upon the trees, formerly protected from their violence. It is not, consequently, the nearness of the sea that permits the olive to exist, but the particular shelter that diminishes the injurious effects of the north wind. This cause is not, however, the only one that permits the existence, or that aids the growth and production of the olive ; it is necessary to its prosperity to be situated in a constant, or almost constant mass of heat. It also derives another auvantage from the intervention of the· shelters from the nurth wind. From Nice to C~rr.:lsonne, the sheltering mountains are elevated and compact, and all this border of the * The cherry tree ( pt·unus cerasus,) bas been planted upon the Mississippi, but does not bear fruit abundantly even upon the high hills of the state ~f Mississippi. The cherry tr e adds anoth~r to the many existing facts, that frmt bearing trees may be reared in places where their pt·oduce will not reward the trouble of their cultw:c. When a given vegetable has been introduced .into any country, onJr one step is taken in the investigation of the subject of 1ts bene· ficial cultivahon. Darby's Louis iana, 2d Ed. p. 220. t The facts stated above are much in opposition to an opinion very common, and even in some measure adopted by the author of this treatise, tbat. vegeta· bles have a tendency to accommodate themselves to cl~ates to wb1ch they may be transplanted. More experience has, hovvever, led to doubts. of tht correctness of this conclusion. If, as the Abbe Rozier slates, the ohve trcs was introduced into France by the I hoceans, it must have existed tllel'e when his work was published (1786) 2300 years. Frorn the best accounts ex· tant, the colony of Greeks that formed Marseilles entered the couutr:y about 600 years before the Christian era. 1 There is no doubt, however, but that the olive tree has existed in the so~t 1 . of France upwards of 1800 years · of course if it is now subject to dcstruc.ttoJ by fro .. t, it must huve received bJt little alte1~ation in this long period. , .. EMIGRANT'S GUIDEP 169 kingdom lies Jirectly opposite to the coast of Africa. It is from that cause that the southern air is retained, concentrated, amd produces an atmosphere most suitable to the full developement of the olive tree and its fruit. The heat is much more intense than if It was freely permitted to advanc~ farther north:x· The Pyrenees prove, Ley~nd contradiction, the correctness of the theery advanceu. If a lme· north and south is drawn through France from Africa, intersecting the eastern extremity of the Pyrenees, it will leave the olive tree entirely to the east; because though the north siJe of the "Pyrenees is in part shelt~red from the north, fhe intensity of the heat is less than in front of the Mediterranean, since the former place is deprived o.f the air of Africa, or if received, it is after tfJe heat is tlecomposed in passing the summits of the Pyrenees, charged with sn w nine or ten months in each year. 'I'his Ali·ican air extends its influence tO' 1\iontelimar. Ascending the Rhone from the sea, the different mountains ~re not of sufficient elevation or compactness to decompose or arrest the passage of the heat; but beyond Montelimar and on the oppo~ite side of the Rhone, rises a chaiu of mountains the t ba~ there the same effects produced Ly the Pyrenees, after passing Carcassonne to Toulouse. 1t appears to me that it is demon»trated that in France the prosperity of the olive tree depend,s upon the foregoing circumstances. If the tree succeeds better in oth~r countrie3 and in other climates, lhe effect ought to be attributed to more favourable situations, arising from approach to the south, or to more complete shelter. The olive dreads cold, but how far heat is cor;genial to it, has never been determined. The Spaniards have transported a species of the olive fo. Lima, and the fruit has increased to twice or three times the size it had in France. We are assured that in South Carolina,t plantationsof olives haTe already succeeded ; from which we may conclude, that it depends upon the inhabitants themselves of the warm part& of America to multiply the olive tree. l\1. Barthez, in his collections of the agricultural rnemoirs for that part of the kingdom on the coast of the Mediterranean, induce:; a hope that this tree may be introduced into the interior of France. I breathe the same hope with all my heart, but I strongly doubt the success. Admit we have in the interior very excellent sheltered situations from high and majestic mountains ; but we have not there the warm air of Africa; its heat is decomposed and lost in pa!ising over • ·:f This is thi true- cause wby, in the same latitude, the valley of the Mobile: Js more temperate than that of the Mississippi, or th6 Proviace of Tcxai. 1 We have not been able to obtain anv certain documents respecting the e::ulture of the olive in Carolina and Geot·gia. Mr. Uugh M'Call, in his histo•·y of Georgia, mentions indigo, !Jut not the olive,, as beiog introduced into Hwt country before 1756. In an excellent w01·k entitled "an bistot·ical a"cotmt of tbe rise and progres~ f the colonies of South Carolina ami Georgia," published in London, 177~, th~ olive tree is not enumerated am on o-st the cultivated vegetablci of tilt• eouulry. The United Stales havino- been p~opled from tbe Dritisb L5lancls, \lvhcrc lJUt· ter was used for the iame 0puql0ses to which olive oil is appropriated in 1 he !Oulh of Europe, the people have neglected, and cautinue to neglect a cui· .t.u1·e, to the detail and bencftt:; of which they are strangers, and utt~nd to the Pl'ouuction of that article} to t!lte .USf! of wbi~.;h thry pre hO\))itu.at 'U. 2~> |