THE OLIVE. 



moss and ferns, they have an intersting and venerable 

 appearance, Thither the small peasant proprietors of 

 Bordighera convey then' crop and pay the miller either 

 in oil or in olives. A hcjuid from these mills dyes the 

 stream.s brown so that the sea is discoloured at their 

 mouths. 



An old Roman proverb runs: — "extra oleas vagari" — 

 to wander beyond the Olives; or, as we should say, to 

 exceed or go be\rond bounds. Tlie meaning of this 

 saying is e.xplained by the ancient custom of planting 

 Olive trees to mark bouncUiries. 



It was said of the Olive in aiibient times that it 

 would nourish only near the sea, and that it never grew 

 more than three hundred stadia (seven and a half geo- 

 graphical miles) inland. But the fact is that the equable 

 climate which is necessary to its full development is pro- 

 duced b^' the proximit\' of wide expanses of water. The 

 tree cannot stand prolonged frost. The Olive is indi- 

 genous in the JMediterranean region as is shown by the 

 recent discover}- of its leaves in the pliocene deposits 

 of Mongardino, IS kilometres north west of Bologna. 

 The fact ot the wild Olive being indigenous to Italy is 

 thus indubitabh' established. On the other hand its intro- 

 duction as a cultivated plant was comparativeh' late. 

 For Pliny mentions that according to the chronicler 

 Fenestella, there was not a single cultivated Olive to 

 be seen in Ital}' in the time of Tarquinius Priscus, that 

 is, about 580 B. C. It ma\' well hate reached Latium, 

 however, in the time of the Tarquins as there was brisk 

 traffic then with the (jreeks of Campania. It is also pro- 



