THE largest olive orchard in the world, and probably the most remarkable and successful experiment in the history of American agriculture, is located at Sylmar, twenty miles from Los Angeles, Cal.

The ranch contains more than 120,000 trees. There are twelve hundred acres under cultivation. An additional eight hundred acres will shortly be planted to olives. There are forty miles of roads within the ranch, and one could drive all day without leaving its boundaries. Two hundred and ten thousand dollars has been invested in the orchard and $15.000 in the factory which treats the olive crop. Yet olive culture in the United States, which was at first deemed a great experiment, has proven successful, for the crop this season from the Sylmar ranch is valued at $225,000. when the entire two thousand acres shall be in bearing, at the present rate of increase, the ranch will produce an annual income of between $300,000 and $500,000.

Although the olive-tree has been cultivated for more than four thousand years, and olives have formed a staple food of some of the oldest races of earth, yet the young orchard at Sylmar is ten times as large as the largest olive orchard in Spain or the Holy Land. This is the first occasion upon which olive raising has ever been attempted upon a really wholesale American basis, and the outcome of this year's crop was awaited with keen interest, as it was a crucial demonstration of the possibility and profitableness of olive culture in this country. Added to this, it is said that the American olive tastes better than its European relative, and yields a far superior quality of oil.

The harvest at the big Sylmar ranch is enormous. One hundred and fifty men are employed in gathering the olives in harvest time, which is throughout the months of November, December, January, and on into February. The olive berries frequently weigh down the branches until they touch the ground. It requires a practised hand to gather the olives so as not to bruise them, and it demands some experience to recognize the proper time for picking. Two hundred pounds is a good average day's pick, at an average wage of about $1.50 per day.

The Sylmar ranch was planted seven years ago, and the trees yield about fifty pounds of olives each. An olive-tree does not come into bearing until it is four or five years of age. As the trees are supposed to live four thousand years—indeed, some of the trees on the Mount of Olives, in the Holy Land, are known to be over three thousand years old—an olive orchard may be reckoned on permanently.

The olive berry always grows on new wood, and, in order to increase the yield, the tree is "cut back," and new wood springs out, which bears fruit the second year. The cutting back process prevents a tree from "running to wood" instead of to fruit. Thus an old olive orchard, if properly pruned, will increase in value each year. The olive-tree is especially susceptible of cultivation. It is one of the deepest rooting trees known, and it is said that the roots extend as far into the earth as the branches rise above the soil.

In picking, the olives are carefully gathered in canvas buckets made for this purpose, and are brought to the factory in spring wagons, to keep them from bruising. The berries are gathered when ripe, although "ripe" olives are frequently "green" in color. After they reach the factory the olives are graded into "ones," twos," or "threes," according to size. They are then put into a solution of lye. This takes out the bitterness. Here they remain a week or ten days. Then the lye is soaked out by fresh running water, and if they are for table use they are put into a solution of brine, where they remain permanently until bottled up or shipped away.

The olives to be used for oil are gathered from the tree a good deal riper than those used for the table. The oil is extracted by a series of "crushers" and hydraulic presses, which are composed of materials that will not absorb odors, stone and metal being used as much as is possible. From the time the olives are picked until they are ready for the market the most scrupulous care is observed that there shall be no contamination. The least foreign germ would cause the product to ferment after it is shipped away.

The big olive orchard presents a vision of surpassing loveliness. As far as the eye can reach it is one sweeping, billowy expanse of silver gray. The olive-trees themselves are not unlike willows in their graceful, somewhat drooping, silhouette. The trees are arranged in orderly rows, and near at hand one sees the peculiarly beautiful shade known as olive green, which becomes a silver gray whenever a breath of wind discloses the under side of the leaf. In the distance the perspective reduces the size and assembles the trees, producing an effect much like a field of waving grain. The orchard is situated in a beautiful amphitheatre in the Sierra Madre Mountains.

Probably the most remarkable feature of this ranch is the fact that it has never been irrigated. When the Los Angeles Olive Growers Association took hold of the property, in 1893, it looked like a desert, being covered with cactus and brush. The earth on the surface is always carefully pulverized, and, consequently, the water has been drawn up by capillary attraction. There is a strong underground seepage from the surrounding hills.

The Chicago Tribune.