3rr> OI.KA ELKOPiEA. 



winds. Tlio beautiful plain of Alliens, as seen towards the north-west from 

 M<nMit llymettus, it is said. apj)ears entirely covered with olive-trees. Tuseany, 

 the sonlH ot" France, antl the plains of Sjjain are the places in Europe in which 

 this species was (wst cultivated. The TiLscans were the lirst who exported olive- 

 oil larizely. and thus it has obtained the name of " Florence oil." The j)arlicu- 

 lar departnienis (if France, in which the olive is most successfully cultivated, are 

 those of the mouths of the Rhone, of the Var, of the (jiard, and some others; but 

 it does not ripen its fruit to the north of a line drawn from the Pyrenees, near 

 Narhonne, to the foot of the Tiittle JSt. I3ernard in the Alj)s ; nor in that part of 

 France which may be considered as foriniiig a portion of the basin of the Mcdi- 

 terranean, and which is enclosed between that sea and the mountains of Ceven- 

 nes and the Alps. The province of Suse, in Morocco, particularly in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Mersa, produces a i^reat abiuidance of olive oil, which is stated to be 

 equal, in quality, to the best Florence oil. The olive grows in Britain ; but. from 

 the severity of the climate, its character is, changed. In its native country it is 

 an evergreen ; but in England, it loses its leaves. Indeed, it needs protectioa 

 even in the mildest winters; and it is only iu the very warmest summers that it 

 will produce fruit at all, which then does not ripen, and is of a very poor tlavour. 

 Thus Italy, south of the Apennines, and Turkey, south of the Haemus, or a line 

 running directly Avestward from the Black Sea to the Atlantic Ocean, in about 

 latitude forty-four degrees, appears to be the general northern limit of the culture 

 of this tree in Europe ; while on the Atlantic coast of rsorth America, it scarcely 

 reaches thirty-four degrees of latitude. Near Charleston, in South Carolina, the 

 olive is usually rendered barren by the vernal frosts ; and in the southern parts of 

 Florida and Louisiana, where it would be secure in winter, it languishes through 

 the sultry heats of summer, for the want of those refreshing breezes which invig- 

 orate this tree on the shores of the Mediterranean. But, doubtless, there are tracts 

 in this country, uniting the conditions necessary for its growth, which have been 

 demonstrated by several experiments one in particular, we here beg leave to 

 relate. While the Floridas were held by the English, in 17G9, one Dr. Turnbull, 

 a famous adventurer of that nation, brought over from Smyrna, a colony of fifteen 

 hundred Greeks and Minorcans, chiefly of the former, and founded the settlement 

 of New Smyrna, on Mosquito River. One of the principal treasures which they 

 brought from their native land, was the olive. Mr. William Bartram, who visited 

 this colony in 1775, describes that place as a flourishing town. Its prosperity, 

 however, was of momentary duration. Driven to despair by hardships, oppression, 

 and disease, and precluded from escape by land, where they were intercepted by 

 the savages of the wilderness, a part of these unhappy exiles died, while others 

 conceived the hardy enterprise of embarking for Havana in an open boat, and in 

 three years their number was reduced to five hundred. The rest removed to St. 

 Augustine, when the Spaniards resumed possession of the country; and, in 1783, 

 a few decaying huts, and several large olive-trees, were the only remains to be 

 seen of their wearied industry. In New California, on the Pacific, they cultivate 

 the olive with success along the canal of Santa Barbara, in latitude thirty-four 

 degrees north; and at Quito, in South America, near the equator, this tree, for 

 eight thousand feet up the Andes, often attains the magnitude of the oak, but 

 seldom or never bears fruit. 



The olive, which is called by Columella, the first among trees, has constituted, 

 from the remotest antiquity, the pride of some of the most celebrated regions of 

 the globe; and, aside from the commercial value of its products, it is invested, 

 both in sacred and profane history, with a thousand interesting associations. It 

 appears to have been cultivated very early ; for we read of oil in the time of 

 Jacob; and the patriarch Noah had sent out a dove from the ark, but she 

 returned without any token of hope. Then 



