BOOK XV. III. I2-IV. 14 



wait for the olives to fall off, for by remaining attached 

 to the branches beyond their proper time they use 

 up the nourishment for the coming crop and occupy 

 its place : this is proved by the fact that if they are 

 not gathered before the west wind blows they acquire 

 renewed strength and fall off with greater difficulty. 



IV. Well then, the first oHve gathered after the Varietirsof 

 beginning of autumn is the posia, which owing to a yit^ngami 

 faulty method of cultivation and not to any fault of -^<^'^"'"'"?- 

 nature, is a very fleshy fruit ; next the orchites, 

 which contains a great deal of oil, and after that the 

 radius. For as these oUves are very deUcate the lees 

 in them very quickly gets hold of them and cause 

 them to fall off. But the gathering of the hard- 

 skinned oHves, which strongly resist damp and conse- 

 quently are very small, is put off even till the month 

 of March , the Licinian, Cominian, Contian and Sergian 

 kinds, the last called by the Sabines the * royal oHvc,' 

 not turning black before the west wind blows, that 

 is before February 8. It is thought that they begin 

 to ripen then, and as a very excellent oil is made 

 from them reason also appears to reinforce this mis- 

 take ; and people say that the cold causes harshness 

 in the oil in the same degree as the ripening of the 

 berry increases the quantity, whereas in reaUty the 

 goodness of the oil is not a matter of the time of 

 gathering but of the kind of ohve, which is slow in 

 decaying into lees. A similar mistake is made in 

 keeping the oHves when gathered on wooden shelves 

 and not crushing them tih they sweat out juice, 

 inasmuch as aH delay diminishes the yiekl of oil and 

 increases the quantity of lees. The consequence is 

 the common assertion that a peck of oHves yields 

 only six pounds of oil ; but nobody measures the 



297 



