114 VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



pomegranates ^ also in sand, if put there when they 

 have just been plucked and when ripe — even unripe 

 ones, if you put them, still attached to the branch, 

 into a pot without bottom, and sink them in the 

 ground, then pitch round the branches to prevent 

 the outside air from getting to them, are not only 

 sound when taken up, but bigger than they would 

 ever have been if left hanging on the tree. 



CHAPTER LX 



OLIVES FOR EATING 



Of the fruit of the olive, Cato writes that eating 

 olives — Orcites and P(a)useae — are best kept either 

 green in brine, or, after being well bruised, in 

 mastic oil. He adds that if the Orcites, when black 

 and dry, be well rubbed with salt for five days, and 

 you then shake off the salt and leave them in the 

 sun for two days, they remain as a rule in good 

 condition, and that they may also be put without 

 disadvantage unsalted into new wine boiled down 

 to half its bulk. 



^ Punica mala, etc. Pliny (N. H., xv, 17) writes: " M. Varro 

 recommends that they be kept in tubs of sand, or else be 

 buried unripe in the ground — in jars of which the bottoms 

 have been knocked out ; but you must keep the air out and 

 the branch must be smeared with pitch. They then grow to a 

 greater size than they can on the tree." 



