I(M 
was much prized by the ancients, both lor ornamental 
and useful works. We are told by Homer that the 
handle of the axe given by Calypso to Ulysses was 
-* % Smooth and plain. 
Wrought of the clouded olive’s easy grain.” 
The olive is cultivated to a great extent in Italy, 
Spain, and the south of France, for the sake of the oil 
produced from its berries. Gray speaks of it as growing 
profusely in Lombardy. The olive is altogether too 
tender to flourish well in our ungenial climate. In the 
mildest winters it requires shelter ; and only under very 
favourable circumstances will it produce fruit, which is 
flavourless, and never ripens. It also changes its charac¬ 
ter; and instead of retaining its leaves through the win¬ 
ter, as it does in those “ lands of the sun,” it sheds them 
like the deciduous trees. But, though we cannot boast of 
-“ Fruitful vines and the fat olive’s freight, 
Yet harvests heavy with their fruitful weight 
Adorn our fields.” 
And whilst corn, the staff of life, is ours, we may well be 
content to borrow wine and oil from our neighbours. 
Its mode of growth is peculiar. Several stems rise 
from the same root to the height of from twenty to thirty 
