OLIVE 



599 



genus is well illustrated by the accompanying cut. 

 The species are widely distributed in the wanner 

 temperate parts of the globe. The Common (Hive 

 (0. Europiea), a. native of Syria and other Asiatic 

 countries, is in its wild state a thorny shrub or 

 small tree, but through cultivation becomes a tree 

 of 20 to 30 feet high, destitute of spines. It attains 

 a prodigious age ; some plantations, as those at 

 Terni, in Italy, are supposed to have existed from 



Common Olive (Olca Eurojxea), Branch in Flower: 



a, ripe fruit ; 6, flection of Mime showing stone. 



(Uentley and Triiiien.) 



the time of Pliny. Some trees in Turkey are 

 credited with an age of 1200 years. There are two 

 varieties of the common olive, one having narrow, 

 willow-like leaves, gray green aUive and silvery 

 below. Iii the other the leaves are similar in ail 

 reflects, only much broader. The latter has also 

 miirh tin; larger fruit of the two, but the oil it yields 

 is rank and coarse to the palate, and is rarely used 

 on the Continent out of Spain, in which country it is 

 the variety chiefly cultivated. The narrow-leaved 

 variety is preferred by the French and Italian 

 olive-growers, the more bland and agreeable oil 

 from which is better appreciated, especially by the 

 British. Olive-oil may lie said to form the cream 

 and the butter of Spain and Italy, as it takes the 

 place of those products of milk in'tlie cookery and 

 table uses of those countries. Ik-in-' highly nutri- 

 tious, it is also regarded as more wholesome than 

 animal fats in warm climates. The finest quality of 

 olive-oil is obtained from- Tuscany. The oil is con- 

 tained in the fleshy part of the fruit not in the 

 stone from which it is extracted by pressure. The 

 fruit when ripe is crushed to a paste. It is then 

 put into woollen bags and subjected to pressure 

 moderately. Tims is obtained in eooMderaUe 

 quantity the finest quality of oil, which is named 

 ' Virgin Oil.' The pulp is then moistened with 

 water and again pressed, the result Ix-ing an oil of 

 inferior quality, yet quite fit for table purposes. A 

 further residue of oil is extracted from tin- pulp 

 after it has been steeped in water ; but it is only lit 

 for soap making and other manufacturing purposes 



' <>n,s, and ('OTTOS-SEED OIL). I'nripe olives 



arc pickled both for consumption in the countries 

 in which they are grown and for exportation to 

 other countries. The best pickled olives come from 

 Genoa and Marseilles to England, but quantities 

 i imported from Languedoc, Leghorn, and 

 Naples. They are eaten abroad before meals 

 M a whet to the appetite, and in England at 

 deneert with wine to restore the palate and as a 



digestive. Dried olives are also used for the 

 same purposes, as well as pickled olives. The 

 wood is much prized by cabinet- makers, being 

 beautiful in colour and grain, and capable of 

 taking a fine polish ; that of the root is most in 

 demand for the making of snuff-boxes and orna- 

 ments. 



The olive has been cultivated in the East from 

 the remotest times, is associated with much mythi- 

 cal lore, and has lieen regarded in all ages as the 

 bounteous gift of heaven, as the emblem of peace 

 and plenty, and the highest reward that could be 

 given to the honourable and the brave. The area 

 devoted to olive-culture in Italy is stated at about 

 2J million acres, and the total production of olive- 

 oil is some &0 million gallons. The olive is also 

 largely cultivated in Turkey and the Levant, in 

 Morocco and Tripoli, as well as S]>ain ; and some 

 attention is being paid to its culture in South 

 Australia. It grows luxuriantly in Chili, whither it 

 was brought by the Spaniards. Jesuit missionaries 

 introduced it into Mexico in the 17th century, and 

 into California, where it grows freely. It has also 

 len grown in Florida ami other southern states. 

 The culture of the olive has been attempted in Eng- 

 land, but without success. Against south walls 

 it lives, with slight protection in winter, in the 

 neighbourhood of London, and in the same way it 

 produces fruit in exceptionally favourable seasons 

 in Devonshire ; but it is generally unsuited to the 

 British climate. Even in those countries in which 

 its culture may 1 profitably pursued the tree is 

 somewhat fastidious ag to soil, aspect, and position. 

 It does not succeed well in elevated situations, pre- 

 fers sloping ground facing and not far removed 

 from the sea, and thrives best in calcareous soil. 

 It is very generally propagated by suckers, but 

 where great care is bestowed on it inarching is 

 practised. It lienrs an abundant crop only once in 

 several years. There are other species of Ulea more 

 remarkable for the hardness and usefulness of their 

 timber than for their fruits. O. verriicosa, 0. capen- 

 sis, and 0. lanrifuliti, natives of the Cape of Good 

 Hope, are small trees or shrubs with wood of such 

 density and toughness as to rival in strength and 

 durability iron itself, and they are all named Iron- 

 wood by the colonists. The fruit of some of these 

 is eatable. The fruit of 0. amertcaxn is also eat- 

 able. The Fragrant Olive of Japan and China 

 0. (Osiiuintluis of some ) fragruns is a handsome 

 shrub with sweet-scented flowers, which are said to 

 lie used by the Chinese for flavouring some kinds 

 of tea. See A. T. Marvin, The Olive: its Culture 

 in Theory and Practice (San Francisco, 1888); and 

 United States Consular Report ( 1890). 



Olive, PRINCESS, the title assumed in 1820 by 

 an impudent pretender, Mrs Olivia Serres, who 

 claimed to have lieen born at Warwick on 3d April 

 1772, the granddaughter of the Kev. Dr Wilmot, 

 her mother licing his only daughter, her father 

 Henry Frederirk, Duke of Cumberland, the young- 

 est brother of George III. In 1791 she had married 

 John Thomas Serres, painter, but had separated 

 from him in 1803 ; and lietween 1805 and 1819 she 

 had published ten trashy volumes of poetry and 

 liciinn. She resembled the royal family, and found 

 some people ready to believe her to be really Prin- 

 cess of Cumberland and Duchess of Lancaster; but 

 slie died in poverty, within the 'rules' of the 

 King's Bench, in Noveml>er 1834. Lavinia, the 

 elder of two daughters by her husband ( there seems 

 to have len at least one son by someone else ), 

 married Anthony Thomas Uyves, the adopted son 

 of William Combe ('l)r Syntax '), only, however, 

 also to separate. She died 7th December 1871, live 

 years after a jury, in Hyves and Ryves v. the 

 Attorney-general, had decided that Olive Serres 

 was not the legitimate daughter of the Duke of 



