THE TROPICAL AGRlCULTURlSt . [April i, 1889. 
as a flavoring for various dishes. The garden 
thyme is the most fragrant. It grows in all parts 
of Europe and in the north of Asia, but is not 
indigenous in this country. "1 know a bank where 
the wild thyme grows" is a familiar line from 
Shakespeare. It is an humble plant, but grateful to 
the smell and the taste. Wholesale houses here sell 
it in powdered form in boxes and barrels. Savory 
is largely sold here. The plant has lilac or white 
flowers. It has a strong and agretable aromatic 
taste and smell, and is used for flavoring dishes. 
Winter savory and summer savory are used for the 
same purposes. Sage in powdered form flavors not a 
few dishes, and it is also used in the leaf. It grows 
wild, and is also cultivated. The whole plant has an 
aromatic smell, penetrating and peculiar, somewhat 
like that of camphor ; and it has also an aromatic 
taste, rather bitter, but nevertheless agreeable, and 
is more generally known in the household kitchen 
than other sweet herbs. It is much used in flavor- 
ing meats and sauces. Italian sage is sold here by 
the bale. 
Pickles are really a condiment, and are therefore 
worth a word in passing. If used judiciously, they 
stimulate the appetite ; properly made, they are 
not unwholesome, and are often, indeed, decidedly 
agreeable additions to the table. There is the cele- 
brated Spanish pickle ; it is a mixture of the red cabbage 
and slices of the large Spanish onion. Gher- 
kins are very young cucumbers prepared with 
especial care to preserve their green color. Some- 
times in cabbage pickles, in which the red 
vegetable is always employed, a few slices of beet- 
root are added. Cochineal is sometimes used to im- 
prove the color and ginger, mace and white and 
black peppercorns are used as spices. French beans, 
onions, eschalots, walnuts, mushrooms, nasturtiums, 
cauliflowers, capers and other vegetables and fruits 
are extensively used in pickling, and the trade re- 
quires large quantities of spices annually. Pickles 
are sometimes colored by boiling the vinegar in copper 
vessels, and thus forming the green-colored acetate 
of copper, or even by directly adding that poison — a 
fact that has led to serious results ; but this bane- 
ful practice is believed to be much less prevalent 
than formerly. 
Capers are the delight of the yourmaad, and have 
long been used as a condiment and as an ingredient 
in sauces. It is more particularly used with boiled 
mutton, though also employed with other meats. They 
are simply the pickled flowers of the caper-bush, of 
a slightly bitter and yet agreeably pungent taste. 
The caper-bush is a native of Southern Europe and 
of other countries near the Mediterranean Sea. It 
is found on Mount Sinai. It decorates ancient ruins, 
clothing them in a trailing garment ot green as beauti- 
ful as the English ivy. It is a rambling shrub, in 
other words, that flourishes most in dry places and it 
is often found growing on rocks and the walls of ruins. 
It flowers from early summer till winter. The caper, 
which contributes so much to the satisfaction of the 
epicure, is simply the half-opened buds of the caper- 
bush. They are gathered every morning, and at once 
put into vinegar and salt. At the end of the season 
they are sorted according to their size and color. The 
larger buds are packed in small barrels, but the smaller 
and greener, being the most prized, are sent to 
market in bottles after having again been put in 
vinegar. The fruit of the bush is a small berry, and 
that is also pickled in some parts of Italy. Sometimes 
acetate of copper has been used to change the grayish- 
green color of the pickled capers to a brighter or 
more emerald-like hue, and this, of course, makes 
them dangerous. The presence of copper in a jar 
of capers can be detected by thrusting a polished iron 
rod into the vessol. If copper is present the rod 
will soon become coated with it. The English and 
!•-,,., ,ch Hteainers annually bring large quantities o( 
various spici , condiments and sweet herbs to New 
York to gladden the epicure and satisfy the popular 
demand lor stimulant-., which is unquestionably very 
yrcat in a nation of such restless energy as ours. 
Olives arc a condiment highly esteemed after a 
taste for them has been acquired, but at first they 
are not especially agreeable. Large quantities are im- 
ported every year. The consumption in New York is 
large, partly by reasou of the cosmopolitan population. 
The olive-tree is indissolubly connected with sacred 
history. The Mount of Olives is a name as familiar 
as that of Jerusalem. The tree itself is so hardy 
that the olives now standing iu what is termed the 
Garden of Gethsemane at Jerusalem are alleged to 
be identical with those named iu tax-rolls as exist- 
ing a thousand years ago, and there is a tradition — 
regarded by many as not altogether improbable — 
which makes them date back to the time of Christ. 
The tradition as to the extreme longevity of these 
trees still to be seen in the neatly-kept Garden of 
Gethsemane, and carefully watched by a sacred Order, 
is undoubtedly based on the] wellknown fact that the 
olive-tree is the hardiest fruit tree that grows. It 
survives the severest frosts, even sharp scorching by 
fire, and almost any degree of mutilation. It sprouts 
from the roots if everything else is dead. It is known 
to survive for centuries after the heart and all but 
the outer layer of young wood are gone. Often a 
large trunk is not only hollow, but split lengthwise 
into several distinct stems, all healthy and bearing 
fruit. Olive oil was known to the writers of the 
Old Testament, in whose time it was used for sacrificial 
libations, for illumination, for food, and for anoint- 
ing the hair and body. Homer mentions the olive- 
tree. It was conspicuous in Roman agricultural 
literature. The Romans used olive oil in the kitchen 
and at the table instead of butter, which was scarcely 
used in the Roman cuisine- 
In Palestine, and in some of the Mediterranean 
islands, the olive tree is as lofty as the tallest oak, 
but in Europe it does not often exceed twenty feet 
in height, being kept down by pruning for the sake 
of convenience in gathering the fruit. It grows in 
Asia-Minor, ^yria, Northern Africa, Southern Europe, 
the Greek Islands, Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, 
California, and ,even to some extent in the Crimea. 
Olive trees are planted from fifteen to twenty-five 
feet apart, and with careful husbandry, will bear every 
year. Italy produces an enormous supply of olives 
and olive oil, and the crop in California is steadily 
increasing. The olives are gathered when fully grown 
but still green; they are first steeped for a day in 
weak limewater or lye of wood ashes ; then in fresh 
water changed every day for four or five days, or 
until they have lost their bitter flavor. Then they 
are salted or pickled in a strong brine. This is the 
practice when the harvest is simply for the olives them- 
selves. "When it is for olive oil, the fruit is allowed 
to remain on the tree until it is of a dark wine color. 
Then the olives are dried a little, and then com- 
pressed for the oil. The best oil is from unground 
fruit, but it is also ground and subjected to repeated 
pressure, sometimes with the aid of hot water. 
Olive oil is adulterated with lard oil and cottonseed oil. 
There are large exports of the American oils mentioned, 
and they come back from Europe, notably from Marseilles, 
travelling under the disguise of the best oil of Italy 
or Provence, really being largely an extract of 
American lard and cotton-seed, which unscrupulous 
French and Italian merchants foist upon us with 
smirking complacency. In the fiscal year ending June 
30, 1887, do less than 744,766 gallons of olive oil, 
valued at $662,197, were imported into the United 
States, mostly at New York. Olives and olive oil 
come to this port in the English, French and Italian 
steamers. 
The total importations of spices into the United 
States iu the fiscal year ended June 30th, 1887, were 
30,980,725 pounds, valued at $3,481,412. Pepper is 
the most extensively used of any of these spices 
known to commerce, and nearly $2,000,000 worth is 
consumed in this country every year. Spices are 
admitted free of duty except when ground. 
But it is well known that spices are much adul- 
terated. Burnt crackers, buckwheat and ground cocoa- 
shells are used to adulterate pepper. Ground almond 
shells are mixed with cassia and ciiiuamou. Flour in 
mixed with mace. Meal and starch help to mak 
