12 



SAMUEL RAE & CO.— 



LEGHORN, TUSCANY. 



Italy and Sicily, as well as in other olive- 

 growing countries. 



The result is a fetid oil, of low com- 

 mercial value. With the increasing 

 competition of cheap seed oils, olive 

 growers will probably find themselves 

 compelled to abandon such bad practice 

 and to endeavor to produce a better arti- 

 cle. It must be added, however, that 

 in the localities where these common 

 oils are produced they are actually used 

 for food, and even preferred, by certain 

 classes, to fine oil, their very rankness 

 seemingly imparting additional zest. 

 Thus an Italian writer says: "If you 

 give to a peasant in Puglia or Cambria 

 a plate of cooked vegetables dressed with 

 Tuscan oil, he will not relish it, but will 

 pronounce it insipid, without smell or 

 flavor. Such is their taste. Common 

 oil, which our palates would pronounce 

 to be uneatable, has its admirers." 



There are many grades of common 

 olive oil ; all are* bad, but some much 

 worse than others. The olive oil pro- 

 duced in Morocco, Algeria, Tripoli, Tu- 

 nis, Syria, Asia-Minor, Greece, Spain, 

 and Portugal is all of it, more or -less, 

 common, but yet it is largely, used in 

 these countries for food. 



Olive Oil Making in Tuscany. 



In Tuscany, where the aim is to pro- 

 duce olive oil as fine as possible, the 

 greatest attention is given to the proc- 

 ess of making it. Factories, meaning 

 by this term something analogous to 

 the cheese factories of America, are 

 unknown, nor would they be at all 

 desirable. Olives will not bear trans- 

 portation to any considerable distance. 

 The less they are handled, the better for 

 the quality of the oil : the bruising and 

 heating of the fruit, incidental to trans- 



porting it any distance, would ruin the 

 quality of the product. Thelarge olive 

 growers have their own mills ; the 

 smaller growers take their olives to 

 some neighbor's mill, there to be pressed 

 in their presence ; the oil as it is pro- 

 duced is taken away and the refuse of 

 the olives is left to the mill-owner in 

 payment of his dues. 



The modus operandi is as follows : 

 The olives, as soon as gathered, are 

 brought.to the frantoio, — so the mill is 

 called. Storage is generally provided 

 in an upper floor, where the olives are ' 

 spread out until ihey can be crushed ; 

 but they are never allowed to remain 

 longer than twenty-four hours, because 

 olives, particularly if wet when brought 

 in, rapidly get mildewed, and the oil 

 made from them would be bad. 



The mill-trough (pila) is built of cut 

 stone cemented externally ; it is essen- 

 tial that the stone used' for this purpose, 

 as also the millstone, should be non- 

 absorbent, lest becoming saturated with 

 oil, which would become rancid in time, 

 a bad taste and smell should be commu- 

 nicated to the product. A silicious con- 

 glomerate rock is much employed for 

 these uses. Olive mills are most fre- 

 quently worked by water power ; where 

 this is not available, by animals, gener- 

 ally oxen. 



About ten bushels of olives are crushed 

 at a time, the operation lasting about an 

 hour. Pulp and stones are crushed to- 

 gether; the pasty substance resulting is 

 next placed in flattish, circular recepta- 

 cles, termed bruscole, made from a kind 

 of rush, and tied at the mouth with a 

 horse-hair cord. When full, ten or 

 twelve of these bruscole are put in the 

 oil-press, the number which it can hold 

 being termed the castello. 



Cold water is poured upon the brus- 



