ii6 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



March, 1907 



for sixty or ninety days, after which it has thrown off all im- 

 purities. It is then made to pass through a filter of felt and 

 cotton batting, and from this thick, pure white bag, the oil 

 of commerce, liquid amber, drips and drips. One can hardly 



Chinese Picking Olives 



conceive anything more beautitul than these pelkicid drops. 

 But this does not satisfy the oil maker. He forces it again 

 through chemists' filtering mats. Clear, and absolutely 

 perfect, it goes to the bottler. I shall always remember the 

 sweetness o( this room, into which it seemed a profanity to 

 walk with shoes, the slow drip of the amber-like oil, the 

 delicate aroma, something quite difierent from anything 

 else, suggestlx e ol the poetry of the oli\'e and its culture. 



At Elwood, there are six or seven olive orchards in vari- 

 ous kinds of land, some in black adobe, some in loam, others 

 in sand and loam and at different levels. In this way olives are 

 made to ripen at different times, but the difference in soil does 

 not appear to affect the grade of the oil. 

 Those who are familiar with certain im- 

 ported oils will probably not like the Cali- 

 fornia product at first. The reason of this 

 is, that they do not know what pure olive 

 oil is, certain importations being made of 

 cotton seed, or diluted with it, but the Cali- 

 fornia oil is the clear, pure essence of the 

 olive, 



Elwood is by no means the only olive 

 orchard in Southern California; it is 

 merely a very old and beautiful type with 

 charming environment. Some large groves 

 are to be seen at Pasadena, at San Juan 

 Capistrano, and with the great valleys 

 down by Santa Ana, California will soon 

 be able to supply America with pure olive 

 oil and the best of olives. 



There are now in the state two million 

 five hundred thousand trees planted, each 

 tree producing theoretically two hundred 

 and fifty thousand pounds of olives. What 

 this means is readily seen. Making a very 

 conservative estimate, allowing a crop 



^ every other year, and twenty per cent, for 



unseen losses, we should then have two hun- 

 dred and fifty million pounds. Assuming 

 that one-half of this is pickled and dried, 

 and we have four hundred thousand barrels of fifty gallons 

 each, or six thousand carloads. 



The balance if made into oil would produce one million 

 cases of twelve bottles each, or two thousand carloads. The 

 use of olix es and olive oil in America is restricted to the rich, 

 when it should be used by all classes. In California the pure 

 oil is used almost exclusively, and few green olives are used, 

 the black, ripe ones being considered more delicious. 



Kitchen Furniture 



C.ontinueJ from Page 06 



moved they gather dirt instantly and they offer endless temp- 

 tations to hang things up over night, convenient enough so 

 long as no damage results, but an exceedingly dangerous and 

 pernicious practice. 



Chairs constitute the final indispensable articles of kitchen 

 furniture. Once more space decides the kind and number, 

 and in many apartment kitchens the area is so small that 

 room can be found for no chairs at all. But a kitchen with- 

 out a chair is a difficult apartment to work in, for chairs are 

 really needed for much kitchen work, and they certainly ease 

 many forms of labor. This in itself is an important element, 

 for the kitchen is the workroom of the house, and every- 

 thing which tends to make the work easier and lighter is a 

 distinct gain to the whole household economy. 



Rocking chairs are, of course, not needed and should be 



omitted. They are sometimes placed in large kitchens, but 

 houses which contain such large kitchens should contain 

 other space in which a rocking chair will be better appre- 

 ciated by the servant than if it is placed in the kitchen. 

 Stuffy chairs of all sorts are also prohibited and are quite 

 useless. This reduces the chair problem of the kitchen to 

 the simplest form, only plain wooden chairs being thus avail- 

 able. If there is not much comfort in these it should be re- 

 membered that the kitchen chair is not intended for comfort, 

 but as an assistant to work. If there is room for several 

 chairs, those of different sizes and heights will be found better 

 than all of one kind. A plain office stool is also frequently 

 available and useful, although it adds one more article of 

 furniture to a room which really has little enough space with- 

 out it. 



