New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1852-04-24

ping and sashng, and turning and twisting the tree
til the unfortunate specimens have had any small degree
Of natural ease and harmony which they possessed
siduousy wrenched out OF them And yet there are
people in the South of France who are enthusiastic in
the hidden beauty OF the olive. There are technical
terms for all the particular spreads and contorions gwen
TO the branches and the olive amateur will hold forth
TO you by the hour upon the subtle charms OF each
gentleman from beyond Marselles has disted with rap
his delight after residence in Normandy,
in returning again TO the hot South, and revistng tho
dear olives so prim and orderly and symmetrca-not
like the huge struggling SPRAYING oaks and eins OF the
North growing up In utter defiance OF all rule and sys
tenn
The olives of France this gentleman informed me- arc
very inferior to the of couple of generations ago.
Towards the close of the last century there winter
night Of intense frost and when the morning broke tho
trees were nearly smfen the That year thero
not olive gathered in Provence or Languedoc.
The next season, some OF the stronger and younger
trees partially revived, and slips were planted from
those 10 which the had been applied but the entire
species of the tree, he assured me, had fallen ohad
dwindled, and pined and become stuuted and the
profits OF olive cultivation had faded with IL The gen.
teman spoke the subject with q degree of JUNCTION
which would have suited the TALL not of the olive but of
man. II was catastrophe which colored his whole life
He himself olive proprietor and very likely
his fortunes fell on the fatal night az many points
the thermometer On our way TO Lunel saw the
olive-gathering Just beginning but ass il had mono
of the gayety and bright associations Of the vintage On
the contrary, II was rs businessk and unexcisng az
wedding onions or digging potatoes. set Of ragged
peasanfs-ihe country people hereabout are poorly
dressed-were cRmbering barefoot in the trees each
with basket lied before him, and lsziy plackng
the dull oily fruit Occasionally the olive gatherers had
spread white cloth beneath the tree, and were shaking
the very rpe fruit down; bu: there neither joity
nor romance about the process. The olive is tree of
association but that IL all It, culture its manuring and
clipping and trimming, and grafung-the gathering Of
s iTlrs. and their squeezing in the mill when the pom
derOrs stone goee round and round in the glutnous
trough crushing the very of the oily pulps-
while the tat oleaginous stream pours lazy into the
greasy vessels est to receive ALL this is prosac
and uninterestng the whole Royal Agricultural So
ciey presiding in spirit over the operations And
after all. what could be expectedt "Grapes" said .
clever Frenehman, are winepilsthe notion of con.
vivislny and mirth Is attached 10 mem; and the
virtaser,, when stripping the loaded branches, have
Their minds nvosntaiy carried forward 10 the joyous
ultimate results of their labors But whoour friends
the Russians and their cousins the Esquiaux excepted
could possibly be jolly the idea Of oil It may oct
hslssniesly and sooingy and the idea of the olive
ssncer green among the bright decanters, does sp-
preach, In some respect, toward the production Of
pleasant association OF ideas but still the elevated and
poetic feelings connected with the tree are remote and
dim.