CHAPTEE I. 



"The trees went fortli on a time to anoint a kino- over tlieni ; and they said nnto the 

 olive tree, Reis^n tiioa over us.'' Judges IX : S. 



The liistorv of the olive is obseiiro and controverted and is lost in 

 the night of centuries. Its home seems to have been in Southern 

 Central Asia, where it was lirst domesticated and improved by the 

 Semitic races of that countrv. Monuments and historv show that 

 the wild olive existed on the Grecian coasts of Asia Minor, in the 

 Islands and in Greece itself. Probably the Greeks received its cul- 

 ture from the Semitics. But when, who can tell? In Homer's time, 

 the ninth century, B. C, freriuent mention is made of the olive, but 

 always as a foix^ign importation, which was used entirely for 

 anointing; the bodv and not for f)od orli^dit. It seems as if in later 

 parts of Homer we see indications of the beginning of its culture, 

 probably on the Ionic coasts and islands, not on the main land. 

 Samos means '^planted with olives." As for Miletus and Chios we 

 have evidence of olives froni -the time of Talete, 639 to o4() B. C. 



The Egyptian bas reliefs show us how that peoi^le extracted oil 

 from the olive before the invention of the stone for crushing' the 

 berries. These depict the pressing of sacks of olives to extract the 

 oil and then washing; with water till onlv the clean stones remain. 



A certain Aristeo is said to have been tlie first to cultivate the tree 

 in Sicilv and to him is attributed the invention of the crushino- stone. 



Herodotus tells us that Athens was the seat of olive cultivation in 

 Greece. At the beginning of the sixth century B. C, olive culture 

 is mentioned in the laws of Solon. 



