342 flow to Make Olive Oil. 
poses the olives are to be used they should be carefully gathered 
by hand, and imperfect, immature, or bruised fruit rejected. 
Sound fruit is required for high-grade oil or for handsome 
pickles with good keeping quality. 
THE MANUFACTURE OF OLIVE OIL. 
Olive oil is made in this State with apparatus of both Cali- 
fornian and European design, and, as a rule, there is made only 
one, and at most but two, pressings of the pomace, which is 
then used for fattening swine. In the frequent working over 
of the pomace, and the close extraction of the oil, as practised 
in Europe, we have done little as yet. 
Olive oil is made on a small scale by a number of parties 
who use home-made contrivances, or small, portable cider 
machinery for the crushing and pressing. During the last few 
years quite a number of mills have been erected, some being 
“custom” or “co-operative” mills for using the olives produced 
by small growers. 
Drying—FExtraction of oil from fresh olives gives the best 
oil, but is somewhat troublesonie, and it is custornary to partially 
dry them. This partial drying is also useful to keep the fruit 
for some time or for shipment before crushing. Place the 
olives in layers not more than three inches deep, on trays that 
are stacked in a dry, well-aired room, protected from the wind 
and the direct rays of the sun. Turn daily until the fruit 
becomes well wrinkled. This requires about eight or ten days, 
according to the degree of temperature. The partially-dried 
fruit may be stored in a dark room where the temperature does 
not rise above sixty degrees Fahrenheit, for three or four weeks 
without any serious deterioration of oil. To hasten the drying 
process, artificial driers, constructed on the same principle as 
the fruit or hop driers, are sometimes used. The olives are 
placed in a single layer upon trays, and the drier is kept at a 
temperature of about one hundred and twenty degrees Fahren- 
heit; at over one hundred and thirty degrees Fahrenheit the 
quality of the oil may be impaired. The drying takes ahout 
forty-eight hours—-more or less—according to the nature of the 
fruit. 
Crushing —The olives are usually crushed by heavy stone 
rollers revolving in a circular depression it) a bed of masonry 
into which the fruit is placed. Crushers with corrugated bronze 
cr bronzed metal rollers are now made that perform their work in 
a very satisfactory manner, breaking up the flesh and pits very 
thoroughly. As they are all of metal, they absorb no oil and are 
easily cleaned. It is very essential that the flesh should be 
crushed thoroughly in order to break up the cells and permit 
