CHAP. 3. (2.)—OLIVE OIL: THE COUNTRIES IN WHICH IT IS
PRODUCED, AND ITS VARIOUS QUALITIES.
It is not with olive oil as it is with wine, for by age it acquires a bad flavour,
1 and at the end of a year it is already
old. This, if rightly understood, is a wise provision on the
part of Nature: wine, which is only produced for the drunkard,
she has seen no necessity for us to use when new; indeed,
by the fine flavour which it acquires with age, she rather
invites us to keep it; but, on the other hand, she has not willed
that we should be thus sparing of oil, and so has rendered its
use common and universal by the very necessity there is of using
it while fresh.
In the production of this blessing as well,
2 Italy holds the
highest rank among all countries,
3 and more particularly the
territory of Venafrum,
4 that part of it in especial which
produces the Licinian oil; the qualities of which have conferred
upon the Licinian olive the very highest renown. It is our
unguents which have brought this oil into such great esteem,
the peculiar odour of it adapting itself so well to the full
developement of their qualities; at the same time its delicate flavour 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 Bætica. The
next rank for excellence is claimed by the other provinces of
our Empire, with the exception of Africa,
5 the soil of which
is better adapted for grain. That country Nature 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 agricultural economy upon which people have been more generally mistaken.
(3.) The olive is composed of a stone, oil, flesh, and
amurca:
6 the last being a bitter liquid, principally composed
of water; hence it is that in seasons of drought it is less plentiful, and more abundant when rains
7 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.
8 This oil continues
on the increase up to the rising of Arcturus,
9 or in other
words, the sixteenth day before the calends of October;
10 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,
which is in reality only the near approach of corruption. A
second error, too, is the supposition that the oil increases proportionably to the flesh of the berry, it being the fact that the
oil is all the time undergoing a change into flesh, and the stone
is growing larger and larger within. It is for this reason
more particularly, that care is taken to water the tree at this
period; the real result of all this care and attention, as well as
of the fall of copious rains, being, that the oil in reality is
absorbed as the berry increases in size, unless fine dry weather
should happen to set in, which naturally tends to contract the
volume of the fruit. According to Theophrastus,
11 heat is the
sole primary cause of the oleaginous principle; for which reason
it is, that in the presses,
12 and in the cellars even, great fires
are lighted to improve the quality of the oil.
A third error arises from misplaced economy: to spare the
expense of gathering, people are in the habit of waiting till the
berry falls from the tree. Others, again, who wish to follow a
middle course in this respect, beat the fruit off with poles, and
so inflict injury on the tree and ensure loss in the succeeding
year; indeed, there was a very ancient regulation in existence
relative to the gathering of the olive-" Neither pull nor
beat the olive-tree."
13 Those who would observe a still greater
degree of precaution, strike the branches lightly with a reed on
one side of them; but even then the tree is reduced to bearing
fruit but once in two years,
14 in consequence of the injury done
to the buds. Not less injurious, however, are the results of
waiting till the berries fall from the tree; for, by remaining on
it beyond the proper time, they deprive the crop that is coming
on of its due share of nutriment, by occupying its place: a
clear proof of which is, that if they are not gathered before the
west winds prevail, they are found to have acquired renewed
strength, and are all the later before they fall.