Chap. 6.] 
CULTUBE OF THE OLIYE. 
285 
also, they are in the habit of crowning the conqueror with 
olive ; and at Olympia, the Greeks employ the wild olive*"^ for 
a similar purpose. 
CHAP. 6. (5.) — THE CULTTJEE OF THE OLIVE : ITS MODE OF PEE- 
SEEVATION. THE METHOD OF MAKING OLIVE OIL. 
We will now proceed to mention the precepts given by Cato^^ 
in relation to this subject. Upon a warm, rich''^ soil, he 
recommends us to sow the greater radius, the Salentina, the 
orchites, the posia, the Sergian, the Cominian, and the albi- 
cera ; but with a remarkable degree of prudence he adds, 
that those varieties ought to be planted in preference which 
are considered to thrive best in the neighbouring localities. In 
a cold^^ and meagre soil he says that the Licinian olive should 
be planted ; and he informs us that a rich or hot soil has the 
elfect, in this last variety, of spoiling the oil, while the tree 
becomes exhausted by its own fertility, and is liable to be 
attacked by a sort of red moss.^^ He states it as his opinion 
that the olive grounds ought to have a western aspect, and, 
indeed, he approves of no other. 
(6.) According to him, the best method of preserving olives 
is to put the orchites and the posia, while green, in a strong 
brine, or else to bruise them first, and preserve them in mastich 
oil.^^ The more bitter the olive, he says, the better the oil ; 
but they should be gathered from the ground the very moment 
they fall, and washed if they are dirty. He says that three 
days will be quite sufficient for drying them, and that if it 
is frosty weather, they should be pressed on the fourth, care 
being taken to sprinkle them with salt. Olives, he informs 
us,^^ lose oil by being kept in a boarded store-room, and dete- 
riorate in quality ; the same being the case, too, if the oil is 
^'^ Or " oleaster." 48 De Be Kust. c. 6. 
A middling or even poor soil is chosen for the olive at the present day, 
^'^ Apparently meaning the white wax'* olive. . 
In warm countries, a site exposed to the north is chosen : in colder 
ones, a site which faces the south. 
°2 See B. xvii. c. 37. This moss has not been identified with precision ; 
but the leaf of the olive is often attacked by an erysiphus^ known to natu- 
ralists as the Alphitomorpha communis ; but it is white, not of a red colour. 
^3 Fee queries how any one could possibly eat olives that had been 
steeped in a solution of mastich. They must have been nauseous in the 
extreme. De Ee Eust. c. 64. 
