THE OLIVE TREE. 



before they are crushed. After having been 

 crushed, they are put into the press, and it is 

 the common practice to pour hot water upon 

 them in order to extract the oil. They are 

 pressed thrice, and each time with addition of 

 boiling water. The fluid runs from the press 

 to a cistern, and when it is filled, the oil flows 

 over the top, leaving the water below, which is 

 cleared away as necessary. The peasant said 

 that all the difference between the fine and 

 common oil was, that the former was the virgin 

 juice drawn off with cold water, and not mixed 

 with the second and third pressings. The trees 

 on this property are reckoned very young for 

 olives, although they are sixty years old. They 

 are pruned every year. But olive trees are said 

 not to require pruning at all till they are twen- 

 ty-five or thirty years old. Two hundred aran- 

 zadas are equal to one hundred and ninety-one 

 English acres; and three thousand arrobas of 

 oil (the average annual produce) are equal to 

 twelve thousand seven hundred and thirty -five 

 English gallons, old measure about sixty-three 

 and three-quarter gallons per English acre. I 

 do not know, however, whether there was not 



included in this estimate forty aranzadas that 

 are entirely planted with the ' La Reyna,' which 

 are never pressed for oil. Even with this de- 

 duction the produce would fall very far short 

 of what the trees of the Hieronomites were said 

 to produce, viz : from three to four fanegas of 

 olives each tree, ea.chfanega yielding an arroba 

 of oil. An English acre will contain sixty trees 

 twenty-seven feet apart, and sixty was said by 

 the peasant to be the number on each aran- 

 zada. One hundred and fifty-three acres, bear- 

 ing sixty trees each, will contain nine thousand 

 one hundred and eighty trees, and the produce 

 being three thousand arrobas, it is scarcely one- 

 third of an arroba for each tree. This comes 

 nearer to Don Jacobo Gordon's statement, that 

 from one and a quarter to one and a half arroba 

 is reckoned a good return from each tree. The 

 trees of the Hieronomites, as well, indeed, as 

 the most of those I saw in the neighborhood of 

 Xeres, were planted on a richer soil, and were 

 of much larger dimensions; but this could 

 never cause such a difference as to reconcile 

 the different statements.' 3 



