280 flint's natural history. [Book XY. 



unguents which have brought this oil into such great esteem, 

 the peculiar odour of it adapting itself so well to the full 

 developement of their qualities; at the same time its delicate fla- 

 vour equally enlists the palate in its behalf. In addition to 

 this, birds will never touch the berry of the Licinian olive. 



Next to Italy, the contest is maintained, and on very equal 

 terms, between the territories of Istria and of Baetica. The 

 next rank for excellence is claimed by the other provinces of 

 our Empire, with the exception of Africa, 20 the soil of which 

 is better adapted for grain. That country Nature has given 

 exclusively to the cereals ; of oil and wine she has all but 

 deprived it, securing it a sufficient share of renown by its 

 abundant harvests. As to the remaining particulars connected 

 with the olive, they are replete with erroneous notions, and I 

 shall have occasion to show that there is no part of our agri- 

 cultural economy upon which people have been more gene- 

 rally mistaken. 



(3.) The olive is composed of a stone, oil, flesh, and 

 amurca : 21 the last being a bitter liquid, principally composed 

 of water ; hence it is that in seasons of drought it is less plen- 

 tiful, and more abundant when rains 22 have prevailed. The 

 oil is a juice peculiar to the olive, a fact more particularly 

 stated in reference to its unripe state, as we have already 

 mentioned when speaking of omphacium. 23 This oil continues 

 on the increase up to the rising of Arcturus, 24 or in other 

 words, the sixteenth day before the calends of October ; 25 after 

 which the increase is in the stone and the flesh. When drought 

 has been followed by abundant rains, the oil is spoilt, and 

 turns to amurca. It is the colour of this amurca that makes 

 the olive turn black; hence, when the berry is just beginning 

 to turn that colour, there is but little amurca in it, and before 

 that period none at all. It is an error then, on the part of 

 persons, to suppose that that is the commencement of maturity, 



20 The heat of Africa is unfavourable to the olive. 



21 The faeces, marc, or lees. This is a crude juice contained in the 

 cellular tissue of the fruit, known as viridine or chlorophyUe. 



22 This is owing, Fee says, to a sort of fermentation, which alters the 

 tissue of the cells containing the oil, displaces the constituent elements, 

 and forms others, such as mucus, sugar, acetic acid, ammoniac, &c. "When 

 ripe, the olive contains four oils ; that of the skin, the flesh, the stone, 

 and the kernel. 



m In B. xii. c. 60. 24 See B. xviii. c. 74. 



25 16th of September. 



