624 



FRUIT CULTURE IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES. 



money, but by agreement retain a certain percentage of the olives 

 brought to them. This system often gives rise to certain abuses that 

 are difficult to suppress, and the poor peasant frequently finds that he 

 has been very far out in his calculation of the quantity of oil that his 

 crop ought to have produced. The other class of oil-mill proprietors 

 is composed of those that may be called merchant-crushers. These 

 buy olives in large quantities from the growers and dealers, manu- 

 facture the oil, and sell it themselves. There are several large man- 

 ufacturers in the city of Marseilles who possess mills in several differ- 

 ent centers of olive cultivation in this district and in Algeria and 

 Tunis. These firms have very naturally acquired a certain reputation 

 for their several marks, and many can command higher prices in the 

 market on the strength of their reputation. Each manufacturer pro- 

 fesses to have a special method of his own, but the basis is the same 

 for everybody. The only difference that can exist is in the way of 

 filtering and refining or clarifying the oil before it is finally casked or 

 bottled. 



OLIVE-OIL MANUFACTURE. 



The process of manufacture is as follows : The olives ready to be 

 pressed are first put into a mill, similar to those formerly used for the 

 whole operation, but the olives are only half crushed, and no oil is 

 crushed out, so that they form a shapeless mass. This mass is then 

 distributed into round flexible kinds of baskets (French name "scour- 

 tins") made of sparto grass and horse-hair, something in the shape of 

 short sacks with mouths only half closed, containing about 15 pounds 

 of the crushed olive mass. From ten to twelve of these bags are then 

 placed, one above the other, in a pile under the regular oil-press and in 

 such a way that the base of one bag rests on the open mouth of the one 

 below. The mouth of the bag being smaller than the circumference of 

 the bag, the mere fact of placing one above the other closes them. At 

 the base of the press there is a ledge with an opening on one side, 

 below which the receptacle for the oil is placed. When all is in its place 

 the press is set in motion, in small mills by hand, in large ones by steam, 

 and the oil gradually oozes out from all sides of the baskets and flows 

 into the vessel below. 



The oil that flows from this first pressing is the best, and i called 

 virgin oil (Huile vierge). 



When no more oil flows through the baskets the press is reversed and 

 the crushed and hard mass of olives is taken out. This hard and appar- 

 ently dry mass still contains a good quantity of oil of good ordinary qual- 

 ity for kitchen purposes, and in order to obtain it the mass must be broken 

 up and mixed with boiling water. The warm mass or pulp is then placed 

 a second time into the baskets and the whole is pressed in the same 

 way as the first lot, only, during the operation of pressing, boiling water 

 is frequently thrown over it. The oil and water that flow from this 



