VARIETIES. 547 



the hard fleshy pulp enclosing a stone. In a pickled state the 

 fruit is highly esteemed. The pickles are made by steeping 

 the unripe olives in ley water, after which they are washed and 

 bottled in salt and water, to which is often added fennel, or 

 some kind of spice. The oil is made by crushing the fruit to a 

 paste, pressing it through a coarse hempen bag, into hot water, 

 from the surface of which the oil is skimmed off. The best oil 

 is made from the pulp alone : when the stone also is crushed, 

 it is inferiour. 



PROPAGATION AND CULTURE. A very common mode of pro- 

 pagating the olive in Italy, is by means of the uovoli (little 

 eggs). These are knots or tumours, which form in considera- 

 ble numbers on the bark of the trunk, and are easily detached 

 by girdling them with a pen-knife, the mother plant suffering 

 no injury. They are planted in the soil like bulbs, an inch or 

 so deep, when they take root and form new trees. It is also pro- 

 pagated by cuttings and seeds. The seedlings form the strongest 

 and thriftiest trees ; they are frequently some months in vege- 

 tating, and should therefore be buried an inch deep in the soil as 

 soon as ripe. 



The wild American olive (Olea Americana, L.) or Devil-wood, 

 a tree that grows more or less abundantly as far North as Vir- 

 ginia, will undoubtedly prove a good stock, on which to engraft 

 the European olive. It is of a hardier habit, and though worth- 

 less itself, may become valuable in this way. 



The olive-tree commences bearing five or six years after 

 being planted. Its ordinary crop is fifteen or twenty pounds of oil 

 per annum, and the regularity of its crop, as well as the great 

 age to which it lives, renders an olive plantation one of the most 

 valuable in the world. With respect to its longevity, we may 

 remark, that there is a celebrated plantation near Terni, in 

 Italy, more than five miles in extent, which, there is every rea- 

 son for believing, has existed since the time of Pliny. 



The olive is not a very tender tree. It will thrive farther 

 north than the orange. The very best sites for it are limestone 

 ridges, and dry, crumbling, limestone, rocky regions always pro- 

 duce the finest oil. The tree, however, thrives most luxuriantly 

 in deep, rich, clayey loams, which should be rendered more 

 suitable by using air-slacked lime as manure. It requires com- 

 paratively little pruning or care, when a plantation is once 

 fairly established. 



VARIETIES. There are numberless varieties enumerated in 

 the French catalogues, but only a few of them are worth the 

 attention of any but the curious collector. The common 

 European olive is, on the whole, much the best for general 

 cultivation, yielding the most certain and abundant crops. 



The sub-variety most cultivated in France is the LONG- 

 i VAED OLIVE (Olea, e. langifoliu), with larger and longei 



