24 



THE OLIVE 



Group I represents the olive of the oil press, the most developed, 

 cultured and domesticated of all olives. The fruit is of various sizes, 

 very fleshy and oily. Sometimes, however, the olive is not very 

 oily and then is only good for pickling. It is a large tree and above 

 all others produces the best olives for oil. 



Group II consists of middle-class olives, the tree is more rustic, 

 the branches more robust and erect, the fruit more fleshy. Tree of 

 middle stature. 



Group III covers olives obtained from the seeds of domesticated 

 olives ; the most rustic of cultivated trees. Its branches are robust 

 and erect, its fruit of various sizes but not very fleshy. A tree gen- 

 erally not growing very large but sometimes of rather good appear- 

 ance. 



Group IV represents the savage type which is not worth culti- 

 vatino; because the fruit is small and the stone is lars;e, with little or 

 no pulp. It grows to a bush or small tree of from ten to sixteen 

 feet in height. 



DESCRIPTION OF OLIVES. 



GROUP I, 



The Razzo or Frantojano. 



This is the variety mainly cultivated in the provinces of Lucca 

 and Pisa, regions that have a world-wide reputation for their oil and 

 where, also, are found in less numbers the Mignolo, Morajolo, Pun- 

 tarolo and some Grossajo. The twigs of the Pazzo are short, light, 

 numerous and rather reflexed. (See Plate III.) It is cultivated 

 in groves on the Pisan mountains where, however, the trees are 

 too near together and as a result they srrow too high. It will not 

 bear much pruning ; all that is necessary is to keep it freed from 

 the dead twigs, from shoots that are too high and from branches 



