FRUIT CULTURE IN ZANTE. 921 



pickling, are picked when they are barely ripe, but these are few and only 

 for local wants. 



The olives for oil-making are picked, or rather knocked, off the trees 

 when ripe. The process of preparing them for table use is simply salt- 

 ing them, putting them in oil or vinegar ; in the latter case they are 

 generally slit on the sides. The process for extracting oil is very prim- 

 itive. The olives are generally crushed between millstones, the upper 

 stone being turned by a horse. Another process is to put the olives 

 between goat-hair sacks, throw boiling water over them, and then press 

 them as one would grapes. Such oil is never good. The peasantry fre- 

 quently keep a portion of their crops of olives for a couple of years with- 

 out crushing them. To do this they are thoroughly sprinkled with salt, 

 and simply left in a corner of their room. It is said that they do not 

 lose either in weight or liquid, but such oil when extracted is liable to be 

 rancid. The process of knocking off the fruit with sticks is much to be 

 deprecated, since many fine shoots are thus destroyed. 



Valley, hill-side, or table-land are all adapted to olive trees. Much 

 depends on the nature of the soil. A hard clay is bad. The best oil 

 is from trees grown on a stony hill-side, but the yield is small. 



There is no system of artificial irrigation, but copious rain-falls in 

 winter are indispensable to insure a good crop ; even then the olive 

 seldom bears a full one except every second year. 



Orchards come right down to the sea-coast. The olive requires plenty 

 of air, and a high wind is indispensable to insure the proper setting of 

 the fruit. Close, sultry weather during the flowering prevents the 

 flower from falling, and a worm is then generated. Of late years many 

 orchards have been attacked by blight, which causes much of the fruit 

 to drop off when approaching maturity. The cause is unknown, and on 

 remedy found so far to combat it. 



The cost of cultivation is not over $12 to $14 per acre, and $6 to $8 

 more for collecting the fruit, cost of manure not included. As a rule 

 the proprietor of an orchard is satisfied with the benefit derived from 

 the manure, and the person who provides it has the hay in return. 



No meteorological observations are taken here. I am indebted to 

 Mr. W. G. Foster, superintendent of the Eastern Telegraph Company, 

 for the inclosed table showing the temperature during the summers of 

 1882 and 1883. 



FIGS. 



No figs of commerce are grown here. Four or five varieties are pro- 

 duced in abundance, both green and black, but they are eaten fresh, 

 the large orchards bearing fruit after the middle of May and all June. 

 A smaller and sweeter fig ripens in August and September, but these 

 are not grown in orchards, only a tree here and there in gardens. 



The cultivation resembles that of the orange and lemon, only that 

 less attention is bestowed on the orchards, and crops of beans and such 



