The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-01-12
THE OLIVE TREES OF CORFU.
Their Venerable Age and PeeuIIari-
ties of Growth.

ties of Growth.
Correspondence Of the Boston Transcript.
The steamer which l boarded at Brin-
dist. in Italy. last evening. reached this
island at noon to-day. and the four days
stop She makes l will spend in a tour OF
exploration. This gem Of the Ionian sea
lies just off the coast Of Albania. or
Epirus, only few miles distant 1t IS
but about forty miles long and twenty
miles wide, and yet some of its mountain
SUBMITS rise 1900 feet high 1t is COM
posed Of various limestone formations
ana It's whole surface is very rough and
much broken. When Venice owned Corfu
she gave premiums for olive trees, and
under this stimulus the natives planted
and cultivated many orchards OF olives
SO extensive has the cultivation of this
tree been that but few other trees are
found here. The soil is well fitted for the
production of many varieties of hard
wood trees.
Once planted, the olive has suited this
people, giving them rich results, single
trees yielding as much as two gallons Of
Oil All 1t costs is the labor of gather
ing the fruit and pressing out the oil
50 prolific Is 1t, that crop once in ten
years pays the farmer for all his toll
These trees have been allowed to. grow
unrestrained, and they are larger and
more wide spreading than any | saw in
Italy. Those In the grounds about the
kings palace are said to be hundreds
Of years old-how many hundreds no one
can tell Year by year this tree renews
itself, and seems destined to live forever.
The growth of the olive Is very sin
gular and quite different from that Of
any other tree 1 have ever seen. When
IT has reached certain age, the interior
part of the trunk begins to decay and
the decayed portion disintegrates and
falls down, leaving an outer she'll firm
and sound. This shell is in many in
stances no more than three or four inches
thick, while the tree may be two or more
feet In diameter
Then again decay goes on in the shell
itself; holes of various shapes and sizes,
circular elliptical. long irregular cracks
make their appearance. In time, nature
smooths and rounds off the edges of these
openings with a new growth, and so the
tree trunks come to look like a mass of
knotted and twisted vines, springing
from the ground by three or four main
roots whose contortious leave these odd
shaped' openings all the way up to the
branches.
The general appearance of these trees is
quaint and grotesque in the extreme. The
trunks. cylindrical in outline with the APP
pearance of having been broken off alb
ruptly ten or twelve feet from the ground,
dark I'm color, leaning, some in one direc-
angles, pierced with many holes, make
one think that a feet of gunboats may
are smoke-stacks, riddled with cannon
shot, showing above ground. And to add to
the illusion, the soft fluffy masses of ash
colored, quivering leaves, which adorn the
of these old trunks, look as though the
smoke-stacks Of the old sunken gunboats
were still belching forth sulphurous smoke.
Hoary and reverend with the weight of
ages, these trees still show that they are
fresh and vigorous with the dew of youth.
They appear to know no change except
from year to year to put forth their soft,
rich foliage, and to yield their abundant
fruitage. When ages of productiVeness
have seemed to impair their vitality, and
decay and death to claim them for their
own, they renew their strength like the
eagle, and bid defiance to time and change.
Young and vigorous shoots spring out
around the seemingly dead trunk, and give
new life and vigor to the parent stock.
What filial love must thrill those young
sprouts, which from year to year crown
trunks From sunlight, air and rain the
new leaves distil a nectar with which to
quicken the blood of the old wood, and
make it young again. Youth offers to
old age its food and renders back the
debt Of blood born with its life" q think
I'm quoting Byron here.)
Has not some one said that the olive
must have suggested to Dante the idea
that souls are imprisoned in trees, and
that they mourn and suffer when the trees
are mutilatdd, or are badly treated?
Then again this tree not only repays
most richly the care and culture given it.
but it springs simultaneously, in all the
rough and rocky out-of-the-Way places in
the country. Its soft feathery foliage
gives a distinctive character to the land
where il grows. while its peculiar color
green, then almost a silvery Wilderness
again as soft as a cloud resting on the
htll-side-makes a clear contrast with all
other 1eafy things about it,