Chap. 6.] CULTURE OF THE OLITE. 285 



also, they are in the habit of crowning the conqueror with 

 olive ; and at Olympia, the Greeks employ the wild olive 47 for 

 a similar purpose. 



CHAP. 6. (5.)— THE CULTURE OP THE OLIVE : ITS MODE OF PRE- 

 SERVATION. THE METHOD OF MAKING OLIVE OIL. 



We will now proceed to mention the precepts given by Cato 48 

 in relation to this subject. Upon a warm, rich 49 soil, he 

 recommends us to sow the greater radius, the Salentina, the 

 orchites, the posia, the Sergian, the Cominian, and the albi- 

 cera; 50 but with a remarkable degree of prudence he adds, 

 that 'those varieties ought to be planted in preference which 

 are considered to thrive best in the neighbouring localities. In 

 a cold 51 and meagre soil he says that the Licinian olive should 

 be planted ; and he informs us that a rich or hot soil has the 

 effect, in this last variety, of spoiling the oil, while the tree 

 becomes exhausted by its own fertility, and is liable to be 

 attacked by a sort of red moss. 52 He states it as his opinion 

 that the olive grounds ought to have a western aspect, and, 

 indeed, he approves of no other. 



(6.) According to him, the best method of preserving olives 

 is to put the orchites and the posia, while green, in a strong 

 brine, or else to bruise them first, and preserve them in mastich 

 oil. 53 The more bitter the olive, he says, the better the oil ; 

 but they should be gathered from the ground the very moment 

 they fall, and washed if they are dirty. He says that three 

 days will be quite sufficient for drying them, and that if it 

 is frosty weather, they should be pressed on the fourth, care 

 being taken to sprinkle them with salt. Olives, he informs 

 us, 54 lose oil by being kept in a boarded store-room, and dete- 

 riorate in quality ; the same being the case, too, if the oil is 



47 Or " oleaster." 48 ^ e R 6 Rust. c. 6. 



49 A middling or even poor soil is chosen for the olive at the present day. 



50 Apparently meaning the " white wax" olive. 



51 In warm countries, a site exposed to the north is chosen : in colder 

 ones, a site which faces the south. 



52 See B. xvii. c. 37. This moss has not heen identified with precision ; 

 but the leaf of the olive is often attacked by an erysiphus, known to natu- 

 ralists as the Alphitomorpha communis ; but it is white, not of a red colour. 



5 3 Fee queries how any one could possibly eat olives that had been 

 steeped in a solution of mastich. They must have been nauseous m the 

 extreme. 54 *>e Re Rust. c. 64. 



