280 
plint's natural history. 
[Book XY. 
unguents which haye brought this oil into suoh great esteem, 
the peculiar odour of it adapting itself so well to the full 
developement of their qualities; at the same time its delicate fla- 
vour equally enlists the palate in its behalf. In addition to 
this, birds will never touch the berry of the Licinian olive. 
Next to Italy, the contest is maintained, and on very equal 
terms, between the territories of Istria and of Bsetica. The 
next rank for excellence is claimed by the other provinces of 
our Empire, with the exception of Africa, the soil of which 
is better adapted for grain. That country IN'ature has given 
exclusively to the cereals ; of oil and wine she has all but 
deprived it, securing it a sufficient share of renown by its 
abundant harvests. As to the remaining particulars connected 
with the olive, they are replete with erroneous notions, and I 
shall have occasion to show that there is no part of our agri- 
cultural econom}^ upon which people have been more gene- 
rally mistaken. 
(3.) The olive is composed of a stone, oil, flesh, and 
amurca i'^^ the last being a bitter liquid, principally composed 
of water ; hence it is that in seasons of drought it is less plen- 
tiful, and more abundant when rains have prevailed. The 
oil is a juice peculiar to the olive, a fact more particularly 
stated in reference to its unripe state, as we have already 
mentioned when speaking of omphacium.^^ This oil continues 
on the increase up to the rising of Arcturus,^* or in other 
words, the sixteenth day before the calends of October ; after 
which the increase is in the stone and the flesh. "When drought 
has been followed by abundant rains, the oil is spoilt, and 
turns to amurca. It is the colour of this amurca that makes 
the olive turn black; hence, when the berry is just beginning 
to turn that colour, there is but little amurca in it, and before 
that period none at all. It is an error then, on the part of 
persons, to suppose that that is the commencement of maturity, 
20 The heat of Africa is unfavourable to the olive. 
21 The faeces, marc, or lees. This is a crude juice contained in the 
cellular tissue of the fruit, known as viridine or chlorophylle. 
22 This is owing, Fee says, to a sort of fermentation, which alters the 
tissue of the cells containing the oil, displaces the constituent elements, 
and forms others, such as mucus, sugar, acetic acid, ammoniac, &c. "When 
ripe, the olive contains four oils ; that of the skin, the flesh, the stone, 
and the kernel. 
In B. xii. c. 60. 24 gee B. xviii. c. 74. 
2i' 16th of September. 
