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CHAPTER VIII. 



MACHINERY AND APPLIANCES. 



The plant required in the manufacture of Olive oil con- 

 sists of a mill for crushing, a press for separating the oil 

 from the solid portions of the fruit, receivers into which 

 the oil is run from the press, and the necessary vessels 

 for storage and for the market. Besides these, there 

 must he a building of some kind in which the various 

 operations are carried on. In the large majority of cases 

 the machinery employed is of the rudest kind, the same 

 form having been handed down from generation to gene- 

 ration. Those engaged in the industry, especially the 

 peasantry, are obstinately attached to old practices and 

 appliances ; and are impatient of suggestions for im- 

 provements, saying — " I do as my father did before me, 

 and that is enough." The accompanying illustrations 

 will shew that a very small capital is required for oil 

 making ; and that the implements are so simple, that 

 with the exception of the millstones, any intelligent 

 rough carpenter could make them. The labor required 

 being proportionately small, the whole expense of 

 producing from the fruit oil such as will command a 

 fair price in the market is comparatively trifling. Care 

 and intelligence are, of course, indispensable in this as 

 in other products which have to compete for public favor ; 

 but in these qualifications our countrymen are not likely 

 to be deficient. 



The Spaniards, as a rule, have not improved upon 

 their appliances since the days of Pliny, whose descrip- 

 tion of the process is much the same as the method 

 chiefly in use at the present day. This is of the most 

 primitive, and its merits rest entirely upon its simplicity, 

 and upon the fact that it has been handed down from 

 generation to generation. 



