"Well, nobody ever knew one to die, except it was burnt, cut down, or killed by the frost. They can't bear the frost. A few years ago, most of the trees in the low ground were hurt by the frost, but this, being on higher ground, escaped. I don't believe they ever die of their own accord."
"How long is it," asked Walter, "after they are planted, before they bear?"
"They bear a few olives in ten or twelve years, but not much of a crop till they are twenty-five or thirty."
"Don't they lose their leaves?"
"A part of the leaves turn yellow, as you see, in the fall, but they are never bare; and in the spring the new ones push off the old ones."
"Do they bear every year?"
"No, every other: they work one year for themselves, and one for the owner."
"Do they yield much oil?"
"A hundred weight of clean olives makes about thirty or thirty-two pounds of oil."
"How much oil will a big tree, like that we have clasped, make?"