330 NEW AMERICAN ORCHARDIST. 



der comfortable food. Without this tree, the country of 

 Provence, and territory of Genoa, would not support one 

 half, perhaps not one third of their present inhabitants." 

 ****** Little is carried to America, because Europe 

 has it not to spare ; we therefore have not learned the use of 

 it; but cover the Southern States with it, and every man 

 will become a consumer of it, within whose reach it can 

 be brought in point of price." In the deserts of Northern 

 Africa and Asia, as we are informed, wherever the olive 

 groves are found, you find inhabitants ; but take away the 

 olive trees, and the country returns again to the desert. 



The other varieties are used at the dessert as a pickle. 

 For pickling, the unripe fruit is steeped in water some days, 

 and then in a ley of water and barilla, or kali and lime ; 

 and afterwards bottled or barrelled with salt and water. 

 According to some, they are scalded. 



But the principal use of the olive is for the production of 

 the oil known in commerce as the olive oil. For this pur- 

 pose, they are gathered by hand when five sixths are ripe, 

 in a fine dry day, and laid on scaffolds three or four inches 

 thick ; here they are to remain five, six, seven, or eight 

 days, till the moisture contained in their pulp has evapo- 

 rated, when they are ground between mill-stones, and put 

 into bags of hemp or rushes, carried to the press, and the 

 oil is extracted by its action, without, however, crushing the 

 stone. This oil is used as an article of food and medicine. 

 That which is afterwards obtained by crushing the stone, 

 from the remaining pulp, and from the kernel by the appli- 

 cation of hot water, is of inferior quality. This last is 

 used by the apothecary for various unguents ; it is used in 

 the preparation of wool in the manufactures ; in the prepa- 

 ration of soap, &/c. But the very best oil is made from the 

 fruit, gathered from or beneath the trees at perfect maturi- 

 ty, and ground and pressed immediately. 



Olive oil is possessed of great medicinal efficacy. Cap- 

 tain Stoddard, an American sea captain, while at Havana, 

 was cured of the yellow fever after the black vomit had 

 commenced, by drinking at once a pint of olive oil by 

 the direction of his physicians. During the periodical 

 visitations of the plague at Smyrna, it has been observed 

 that the boatmen and others, who are engaged in the 

 transportation and management of the oil of olives, and 

 whose bodies are in a manner encased in garments saturated 



