176 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIV. No. 345 



OLIVE CULTIVATION. 



Of the various food products, or vegetable liquids, perhaps those 

 most extensively shown at the Paris Exhibition are wine and oil. 

 These two seem to follow the progress of civilization and settle- 

 ment, whenever the climate is suitable. Olive oil is shown in a 

 very large number of the foreign sections, and the wide and ex- 

 tensive progress it has made over the world is exemplified now by 

 one French exhibitor, who exhibits samples from the following 

 widely-separated districts : the Gold Coast of Africa, Melbourne 

 and Adelaide, Chili, Guatemala, Guayaquil, Mexico, Venezuela, La 

 Plata, New Orleans, Philadelphia and New York, Canada, India, 

 Cochin China, Reunion, Mauritius, Japan, Polynesia, Havana, 

 Guadaloupe, Martinique, Trinidad, Hayti, the Black Sea coast, the 

 Levant, Spain, Portugal, and France. 



But these are not all the seats of production, and are merely 

 cited to show how widespread is the culture of the olive at the 

 present day. ■ 



Taking the French official catalogue, and turning to the alimen- 

 tary products, " class 69, oils and fatty substances," there will be 

 found over six hundred exhibitors of olive oil specially named, be- 

 sides numerous collective exhibits, and many others also are in- 

 cluded under the general term " comestible " or edible oils. There 

 is much substitution, however, carried on in this respect at the 

 present day by the sale to the public of refined cotton-seed oil, 

 sesame, and other oils, in place of olive oil. The number of ex- 

 hibitors of olive oil under each country as given by Mr. P. L. Sim- 

 mons in the Journal of the Society of Arts, are as follows : Por- 

 tugal, 448 ; Algeria, 128 ; Italy, 8 ; France, 12 ; Spain, 5 ; Califor- 

 nia, 4 ; Japan, i ; total, 606. There are two or three exhibitors 

 also from Tunis, and in the French section there is a. collective 

 exhibit of edible oils made by sixty-seven producers and dealers 

 from Salon, Bouches du Rhone. 



The various uses of the olive for its fruit and its oil are well 

 known. In ancient Greece the tree received all the honors, and 

 had almost a sacred character. This was in consequence of its 

 being the chief production of the country, and its produce the main 

 source of public food. 



From olden times the people of the Mediterranean coasts have 

 made the olive their principal culture, and it is there the oil industry 

 chiefly centres, — in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, and France, on 

 the northern coast ; and Morocco, Algeria, and Tunis, on the 

 southern shores. 



The olive has been cultivated in those regions from time im- 

 memorial, as the bounteous gift of heaven and the emblem of peace 

 and plenty. Olive oil takes there the place of butter. Spain has 

 about 3,000,000 acres under olives, Italy 2,250,000, and France 

 about 330,000, of which 15,000 acres are in the district of Nice. 

 Olive oil in the country of Nice forms now four-fifths of the agri- 

 cultural produce. 



The varieties of the olive are very numerous. The naturalist 

 Risso, in 1826, described forty distinct varieties, and these have 

 since been increased to forty-five. 



In the countries where it is indigenous, the olive tree attains 

 gigantic proportions. It reaches, occasionally, sixty feet high, with 

 a circumference of trunk of twelve feet, and these trees are sup- 

 posed to have attained the age of one thousand years. Certain 

 varieties grow more rapidly than others, and some differ from each 

 other in the nature of the wood, the foliage, and the quality of the 

 fruit. There are large olives and small olives, pointed, oval, round, 

 and curved fruit, and of all colors, ranging from white to black, 

 and from green to red. The flavor of the fruit is mild, sharp, or 

 bitter. Hence, according to the variety, there is obtained sweet 

 oil, light colored, and of exquisite flavor, up to dark green, thick, 

 and of a bitter taste, strong and very unpleasant to the palate. 

 Hence it follows that olive oil can be obtained pure, and also quite 

 unfit for food purposes, only suitable for greasing machines and 

 making soap. The green unripe olives, after remaining in a solu- 

 tion of salt for some time, to remove the bitter taste, are preserved 

 in vinegar, with spices, in bottles or small barrels. Those of Tus- 

 cany and Lucca are considered the best, on account of their light- 

 green color and strong flesh. In all parts of southern Europs they 

 are in this form a daily food. 



The ripe olives are gathered in the fall, when they are as large as 

 common plums ; their color is dark green, and the soft kernel has 

 changed into a hard stone, which contains a savory almond. The 

 flesh is spongv, and its little cells are filled with the mild oil, which 

 pours out at the least pressure. 



There is a fine collection of preserved olives shown by Hernanos 

 & Company, of Barcelona. The finest oil is the so-called virgin 

 oil, to obtain which the freshly gathered olives are put into little 

 heaps, and by their own weight the oil is pressed out, and is caught 

 in some vessel. It is clear like water, has a delicate nut-like taste, 

 with little or no odor. When the fruits cease to give the oil by 

 themselves, they are pressed with small milkstones. The oil 

 gained by this process is also clear, and of a pleasant taste. 



After this treatment the olives are still rich in oil, and the fruits 

 are put in sacks ; boiling water is poured over them, and they are 

 pressed once more. The oil gained by this process is yellowish 

 green, and has a sharp taste and an unpleasant smell, because it 

 contains some mucilaginous matters. 



At Marseilles, the great seat of the vegetable oil trade, the olive 

 oils are classed into manufacturing oils for burning, for greasing 

 machinery in factories, and for soap-making ; refined oil ; oil from 

 the pulp or husks ; and table or edible oil. The latter is divided 

 into superfine, fine, half-fine, and ordinary. The table oil is refined 

 by allowing it to run through layers of thin sheets of wadding into 

 tin perforated boxes ; the wadding absorbs all the thick particles, 

 and leaves the oil perfectly clear and tasteless. 



In the Spanish section. Signer Jos6 Gonzalo Priete, who has 

 steam works at Lora del Rio, Seville, makes a display of an imita- 

 tion olive tree silvered, from the branches of which are suspended 

 six glass globes, filled with the different qualities of pure olive oil. 



The Tuscans were the first who exported olive oil largely, and 

 thus it has obtained the name of Florence oil. It would be a 

 curious fact to ascertam the number of olive trees which exist in 

 the different countries bordering on the Mediterranean, — Tunis 

 has over four millions, Algeria three millions, Nice one million, 

 Syria several millions, while the number in Spain, Portugal, Italy, 

 Greece, Morocco, and Turkey is unknown. 



The Union of Proprietors of Nice is a limited society, with a 

 capital of about a hundred thousand dollars, which, by its statistics, 

 binds itself to deal only in pure olive oil. It has about twenty-six 

 plantations and presses in different parts of the district. The com- 

 pany makes a fine display of olive oil. 



It may be stated, in conclusion, that the olive crop is a very 

 variable and uncertain one ; one that yields a profit does not per- 

 haps occur for six or eight years. 



HEALTH MATTERS. 



Report of the Paris Commission on Consumption. 



The permanent commission, appointed last year by the Congress 

 for the Study of Tuberculosis, has just presented its report, through 

 M. Villemin, chairman. This report embodies certain instructions 

 to the public, which the commission deems of sufficient importance 

 for general adoption. The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal 

 summarizes this report, a comparison of which with that issued in 

 New York, and previously referred to, is of interest. 



Tuberculosis is, of all diseases, that which has the most victims, 

 especially in the cities. More than one-fourth of the mortality of 

 Paris during the year 1884 was from tuberculosis in some of its 

 forms. Tuberculosis is a parasitic, virulent, contagious, trans- 

 missible disease, caused by Koch's bacillus. The microbe pene- 

 trates the organism by food, by air of respiration, and through the 

 skin and mucous membranes by abrasions, excoriations, and divers 

 ulcerations. Certain diseases, as measles, chronic bronchitis, pneu- 

 monia ; certain constitutional states due to diabetes, alcoholism, 

 syphilis, predispose to tuberculosis. 



The cause of tuberculosis being known, there is but little diffi- 

 culty in preventing its dissemination and propagation, if proper 

 prophylactic means are taken. The parasite of tuberculosis may 

 infect the milk, muscles, and blood of animals which serve for the 

 food of man. Raw meat, underdone meat, blood, may contain the 

 living germ of tuberculosis, and should be interdicted. For the 

 same reasons, milk should be boiled before being ingested. By 



