The Olive Its Culture in Theory and Practice/Chapter 1
The Olive
CHAPTER I.
Judges IX: 8.
The history of the olive is obscure and controverted and is lost in the night of centuries. Its home seems to have been in Southern Central Asia, where it was first domesticated and improved by the Semitic races of that country. Monuments and history show that the wild olive existed on the Grecian coasts of Asia Minor, in the Islands and in Greece itself. Probably the Greeks received its culture from the Semitics. But when, who can tell? In Homer's time, the ninth century, B. C., frequent mention is made of the olive, but always as a foreign importation, which was used entirely for anointing the body and not for food or light. It seems as if in later parts of Homer we see indications of the beginning of its culture, probably on the Ionic coasts and islands, not on the main land. Samos means "planted with olives." As for Miletus and Chios we have evidence of olives from the time of Talete, 639 to 546 B. C.
The Egyptian bas reliefs show us how that people extracted oil from the olive before the invention of the stone for crushing the berries. These depict the pressing of sacks of olives to extract the oil and then washing with water till only the clean stones remain.
A certain Aristeo is said to have been the first to cultivate the tree in Sicily and to him is attributed the invention of the crushing stone.
Herodotus tells us that Athens was the seat of olive cultivation in Greece. At the beginning of the sixth century B. C., olive culture is mentioned in the laws of Solon.
The olive was probably carried by Grecian colonists into Italy, Sardinia, Sicily and Gaul, although it is possible that the Phenicians anticipated them. According to Pliny, in the time of Tarquinius Priscus, 615 B. C., there were no olives in Italy, but five hundred years later Italy was able to export oil to the provinces. The Greeks, those ministers to luxury, taught the Romans its use in the gymnasium, and Pliny complains that the directors of those institutions in Rome had sold the scrapings of the citizens exercising there for sixty thousand sesterces. Ancient medicine was certainly nasty if nothing else. These scrapings of oil and sweat of athletes were supposed to be peculiarly endowed with curative properties and were largely used in plasters and emollients.
Cato thought that the more bitter the olive the better the oil, but at that time the olive in greatest favor in Italy was the Licinian which was the one olive the birds would never touch. This is in all probability the Italian variety known as the Leccino today.
The names of places in Palestine speak a language from which one learns the extensiveness and beauty of the Hebrew olive plantations. The Mount of Olives situated some three thousand paces from the temple, on the east side of Jerusalem, was among the places best cultivated. On its slopes was the plantation called Gethsemane (that is Gath-Semen which means the "oil press") because of the olives with which it was covered and those of the mountain above where they pressed out and made oil in great abundance.
The Bible gives us various glimpses of the mode of treatment in harvesting and gathering the olive in Palestine.
Deuteronomy xxviii, 40.
i Chronicles xxvii, 28.
Jeremiah xi, 16.
Revelation vi, 6.
Here where plagues were sent forth broadcast they were first laid under an injunction not to harm the oil and the wine. Does it not then seem that the land of the olive and the wine is an especially favored one? These Biblical references are interesting for their antiquity and the view they give us of the management of the olive at that remote period. The manner of harvesting, of oil making by treading the berries, of planting on fertile plains where sycamores grow, of seeking the wild olives on the mountains where the birds had scattered the seeds, of the danger of the olive from fire, all this is repeated to-day in the European home of the olive. The oil olive, being essentially a product of civilization, no longer flourishes in Palestine; without man's fostering care it soon reverts to its wild state and ceases to fruit, and finally disappears altogether.
The ancients regarded the olive with reverence and awe. The ease with which it sprang into renewed life, the vitality it possessed, and the hoary age it attained, all led them to endow it with a divine origin.
The Greeks dedicated it to Minerva, and with evergreen olive leaves bound the brows of brave captains and citizens most marked for virtue and wisdom.
The Romans held the olive in a much greater esteem than their simple appreciation of the oil, and mingled the leaves in the triumphal crowns of the defenders of the country.
Professor Caruso says:
"The olive, because of the moderate care which it requires and the copiousness and value of its product, may be considered as a Providential tree." He further says that but for the olive a great part of the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea and its dependencies, European, Asiatic and African, which are now covered with its perennial verdure and form the source of the wealth of the people of that region, would be sterile and desert. Few trees can contend with it for the title of primate, and Columella was well advised in proclaiming it the best of his times.
The olive is limited in its possible extension, but still the Italian has already looked forward with dread to its cultivation in Australia, and now California seems likely to prove a formidable rival. But his fears would seem to be unfounded, as the only effect of a supply of pure olive oil in the United States from California, is likely to be a greatly increased demand for the pure article, whether it comes from abroad or at home.
The olive has advantages, however, over most other oil producing trees, such as the walnut, sesame, peanut, linseed, rapeseed, castor oil, and poppy, which, as a rule, demand a rich soil and minute care. Consequently, where the olive prospers it is not worth while to cultivate other trees or plants which produce oil.
The ancients used oil for food, for light, and for anointing the body. It grew to be a maxim in the latter days of the Roman Empire that life was prolonged by oil without, and honey within.
Modern uses are more numerous; for food, for light, for soap, in dyeing, in perfumery, in pharmacies, in manufacture of cloths and for machine oil, especially in cold countries.
The economic future of olive culture seems most promising, since its uses increase steadily, while for food alone the demand is ever greater than the supply, as is proved by the enormous amount of adulterated oil openly sold in all the markets of the world.
THE WORLD'S PRODUCTION OF OLIVE OIL.
Italy comes first as an oil producing country as her export is the largest. This kingdom has yielded in oil as follows, viz:
Gallons. | ||
| 1880 | ........ | 86,000,000 |
| 1881 | ........ | 34,600,000 |
| 1882 | ........ | 56,800,000 |
| 1883 | ........ | 41,300,000 |
| 1884 | ........ | 46,800,000 |
| 1885 | ........ | 47,000,000 |
| 1886 | ........ | 64,300,000 |
which would average about fifty-four million gallons annually. The export has been steady for the last ten years at about twenty million gallons. The population is twenty-eight millions. The area of the whole kingdom is one hundred and twelve thousand square miles, and that devoted to olives is two million two hundred and fifty thousand acres.
For Spain it is much more difficult to reach the truth. The population of Spain and Portugal is twenty-two millions, the surface area of the two kingdoms is two hundred and thirty-three thousand square miles, more than double that of Italy, and five million acres are given up to olive culture. The very reasonable estimate of Senor Tablada would give a product of one hundred and fifty million gallons of oil for the annual yield of Spain. The export is only ten million gallons. The explanation of this is that the consumption of oil and olives is very much greater there than anywhere else in the world, and also that Spanish oil is made in such a slovenly way that the world will not take it, and it must be consumed at home. Olives are often piled up in a heap and left to rot for six months or a year before being pressed. This suits the national taste; they like strong or rancid oil, but it is not a marketable product and has to be consumed at home.
France has a population of thirty-eight millions, an area of two hundred and four thousand square miles, of which only three hundred and seventy-five thousand acres are given up to the cultivation of the olive. The annual product of oil is only nine million gallons.
Some of the other Mediterranean countries produce oil, but it is entirely consumed at home or exported from one to the other.
The total production of oil then is:
Gallons. | ||
| Italy | ........ | 54,000,000 |
| Spain | ........ | 150,000,000 |
| France | ........ | 9,000,000 |
| 213,000,000 |
of which Italy and Spain together furnish thirty million gallons only for export.
The population of Europe is three hundred and thirty-nine millions of people, more than enough to consume their own oil.
It is plain that France is a large importer. Such is the fact. The entire Spanish surplus and the bulk of that of Italy finds its way into France. Hence the impudence of a French export of olive oil; its own supply being a failing one and insufficient for domestic consumption.
From these figures it is plain that California has little to fear from foreign competition. In addition to this France has been steadily retrograding as an oil producing country since 1793. In the ten years preceding 1876, seventy-five thousand acres in the Maritime Alps, abandoned olive cultivation for that of cereals, fruits, flowers, the vine and the mulberry, as requiring less care and so yielding a better return.
In Africa also, the cultivation has been generally given up, the climate being too humid and the latitude too far south.
It is quite natural that with the increase of geographical knowledge new and more favorable regions should be discovered where the cultivation of this noble tree may flourish on a greater scale than ever. With reason we flatter ourselves that California is such a spot. Mr. Goodrich, to whose searching observation we are so largely indebted, notices a marked difference in point of size between the Italian and Californian trees of a given age. A ten year old tree in California is much larger in every way than its Italian counterpart. Hence, as was to be expected, its production is also greater.
Our experience with the olive is as yet largely experimental. But we cannot hope to make a high grade of oil unless we first plant in favorable situations olives of superior qualifications as oil producers. It will be the endeavor of the writer to indicate in the following chapter which these varieties are, together with their characteristics.
The age of the olive tree is known to be very great, It may be said that well cared for trees will live three hundred years. From the first to the twelfth is the period of its infancy, from the thirteenth to the thirtieth its youth, from the thirty-first to the fiftieth a period of growth, and from the fifty-first to the three hundredth the possible period of its life.
Its vitality is really wonderful, and it seems as though it would actually live forever were it not for the attacks of its numerous and persistent enemies, who bore holes in its bark, eat out its heart, kill its branches and feed on its leaves and fruit; but so great is its hold on life that after all this has occurred, if the dead and dying tree be cut down close to the ground, its vigorous root will give birth to still another tree. It varies greatly in size. In Spain, Nijar, Almeria, one was seen that four feet from the ground measured nine feet nine inches in circumference, and there are well authenticated reports of trees attaining even a larger growth, but of course it is superfluous to say that such a size is abnormal.
What return may we expect from an olive plantation? This is a question that is often asked and one of vital interest.
In Spain olives will average, taking the country over, thirty-two trees to the acre, and in estimating for oil it is customary to reckon every six trees as good for four gallons of oil. Here we may safely calculate on our trees, averaging one year with another, a gallon of oil per tree, and hope for as much more as we please. Also olive culture in Spain is susceptible of improvement. The yield could be much increased by giving more care and attention to the orchards. Their methods are very crude and the people very poor. But their large experience has demonstrated the futility of planting too near together. This is the crying sin of the California fruit grower. In this way heretofore unheard of pests are evolved, trees are rendered sickly and stunted, and promising orchards become unprofitable. The olive is least able to bear the effects of overcrowding; sunlight and ventilation are absolute necessities to it. Fifty good trees to an acre is a better investment than a hundred poor ones. As the olive is so long in maturing, it is customary to utilize the space between the young trees by growing grapes and the short lived fruits, such as prunes and peaches, to give way finally to the mature tree.
On purchasing the Quito Farm the trees were found to be injuring each other by their proximity, (sixteen and one half feet) and every other one was taken out, deprived of all its branches and replanted. This was done in the spring of 1883. Those replanted trees will this year bear a crop: that is they have been lost to the orchard for the past five years, owing to the error of their having been planted too near together in the first place. This year the trees, by reason of their increased growth, are still too near together, and the process of thinning out will have to be repeated. In this case the economy of planting the trees a reasonable distance apart in the first instance is quite evident.
Mr. Ellwood Cooper has told us that the best result he ever obtained was one bottle of oil from ten pounds and fifty-six hundredths of olives, and the poorest a bottle from twelve and a half pounds. This is twelve and ten per cent. respectively. The best variety among the Mission, the Cornicabra, should give a better result than this. The maximum yield of any olive is twenty per cent. of oil for weight of berries. From that down to ten. An olive that will not return ten per cent. of its weight in oil had better be abandoned for one that will. A large and fully developed tree has been known to yield as much as sixteen gallons of oil.
In Florence, Italy, Mr. Goodrich has found it a matter of increasing difficulty each year to get pure oil. In fact the manager of a large olive grove in the vicinity had the hardihood to tell him that he did not believe it possible to procure any there. The output of cotton seed oil in the United States is half a million tons, or seventeen million five hundred thousand gallons. In the late Congressional investigation into the Cotton Seed Oil Trust, it was developed that twenty-seven per cent. is exported to be used as an adulterant of olive oil. In Italy it is poured over the olives in the crusher to thoroughly mix the two oils. Originally cotton-seed oil was used to merely adulterate, which was bad enough, but of late it is pressed on the public with greater boldness.
The British Consul at Leghorn, in his report for 1886, states that the Florentine flasks in which pure olive oil was formerly shipped to the British market are now sent direct to London empty and there filled with cotton seed oil, and he warns the public accordingly. The following is from a late work in the interest of cotton seed oil: "It is hoped that in time the prejudice now existing against cotton seed oil in this country will be overcome and our people, like those of Europe, take to cooking their food in oil instead of using lard. That there is a growing demand for cotton seed oil for table use and culinary purposes is evidenced by the increased business of merchants who make a specialty of filling fancy bottles with cotton seed oil." We are all familiar with the fancy bottles and the blatant claim that they contain pure olive oil. These so called merchants are engaged in deceiving the public, in endeavoring to palm off cotton seed oil for olive oil. Cotton seed oil is refined by treatment with alkaline carbonates and caustic alkalies, and this fact is sufficient to condemn it as a food oil.
Crude cotton seed oil is a thick fluid of a reddish or dirty yellow color, and if left standing will deposit a slimy sediment. For years the cotton seed oil refiners encountered very great difficulty in disposing of this coloring matter, but this impediment is now overcome in the following manner. To an iron tank charged with ten tons of crude cotton seed oil, is added thirty hundred weight of caustic soda lye. Saponification ensues, and the coloring matter is precipitated. No argument can convince the impartial mind that an article so prepared is fit food for the human stomach. There are many other adulterants which are used in unison with cotton seed oil, such as sesame, palm nuts, hemp, cupra or sunflower, and a host of others of strange origin. It is not safe to say that these supposititious comestibles are always innocuous. Many an oil retains the subtle qualities of the plant which produced it, and it may be that obscure maladies which puzzle the doctor are not unfrequently caused by the detestable practice of supplying for the genuine article something which looks sufficiently like it to mislead, and, it may be, poison the hapless public. A simple and homely test for the detection of adulteration is the heating of oil until it smokes, in some small vessel. The smell of olive oil while suggestive of the kitchen and cookery is not at all disagreeable, while any counterfeit oil, and especially cotton seed oil, is exceedingly offensive to the nostrils. If placed in a refrigerator, pure olive oil will remain unchanged, or at most throw down a little palmatin, while adulterated oil will thicken and congeal. The persistent adulteration of olive oil will bear its legitimate fruit; the markets where the world has sought its supply heretofore will become discredited, their wares will no longer meet with ready sale in the face of free supplies of the pure article from California and Australia.
Gasparin makes some interesting calculations as to the consumption of oil in France. In Provence a laborer consumes an average of nine pounds per annum, and the same ratio holds good in Paris.
The olive grower of California has sixty-five millions of countrymen among whom to market his product. Now if we assume that the consumption may reach only one pound per head annually, it would require ten million gallons to satisfy the demand for the United States alone, or, with an acreage of fifty trees, olive groves covering two hundred thousand acres. Our people have yet to learn to appreciate the olive. It needs no pushing, it will make its way on its merits. It is sufficient to say that the public were willing to pay during all last season fifteen dollars a gallon for an oil they knew to be pure. But increased production will lower the price, and a lower price will stimulate the consumption.
Olive oil has always been greatly esteemed for the beneficial effects derived from its use by the human body. This reputation is sustained by the experience of mankind from the beginning of history. Of late years it has been discovered that it contains cholesterin, which was only known to exist in the animal body, where it forms an important constituent of the gall, the blood corpuscles, and the nerve substance.