APPENDIX. 387 



and in Spain I saw hundreds of thousands of acres covered with 

 this beautiful tree. It is .also grown to a considerable extent in 

 the South of France, and indeed, it may be said that from Tur- 

 key in Asia to Spain, over a strip of country two thousand miles 

 long and three or four hundred miles wide, it is almost the only 

 tree that flourishes. In general size and appearance it is some- 

 what like an apple tree, and an olive grove seen at a distance 

 looks like an apple orchard. More close, however, the appearance 

 is different. The leaf is long and slender, somewhat like a wil- 

 low leaf, and the branches, although not quite so slender and 

 bending as those of the willow, are much more so than those 

 of the apple tree. The color of the leaf is a grayish green, 

 especially on the under side, and when a breeze is blowing, the 

 leaves turn upward like those of a poplar tree, making one side 

 of the tree appear quite different in color from the other. The 

 trunks of the older trees have a strange propensity to grow 

 into fantastic shapes, and they appear to be constantly decaying 

 in parts, but this decay is replaced by new growth. They are 

 carefully and closely pruned, and it is quite common both in Italy 

 and Spain to see all the limbs of an old tree cut away in order to 

 produce a young and fresh growth, upon which the fruit is much 

 finer than that grown on the older branches. Kaised from the 

 seed, it takes about five or six years before the trees begin to 

 bear, and about twenty years before they arrive at maturity and 

 produce a full crop ; after this, however, they last for hundreds 

 of years. 



Table olives are pickled while green, and are placed at once 

 in a brine, or lye, usually made of salt water and wood ashes. 

 In about eight days they are ready for use, but may be kept in 

 the brine an indefinite time without injury. Sometimes the 

 brine is changed, however, two or three times, each time being 

 made a little weaker. 



The olives destined for producing oil are allowed to remain 

 on the tree until they are ripe, at which time they are of a dark 

 purple color, and the meat quite soft and pulpy. These usually 

 drop off the trees of their own accord, and being picked up, are 

 carried to the press-house, where they are placed together in piles 

 and allowed to remain from ten to twenty days. This softens 



