Page:A Practical Treatise on Olive Culture, Oil Making and Olive Pickling.djvu/45



We are told by Coutance that the primitive type of the Oleaster, or wild olive tree, has been modified in many manners, that numerous varieties have sprung up, that the nomenclatures prevailing in different localities do not correspond with each other, that it, therefore, is impossible to give a general catalogue which would comprise all the cultivated varieties of the olive tree.

Other authorities on the subject enumerate varieties in vast numbers. One writer will indicate certain ones not mentioned in another, and some of them, not satisfied with the varieties generally known, seem to take the task of discovering new ones, after the manner of an astronomer in quest of new planets. Moreover, the names vary according to the country, and it is often the case that different olive trees are designated under the same name. When thus the high priests in oleiculture have admitted the impossibility of giving a complete catalogue of the innumerable varieties of the olive tree, how could I dare to undertake so arduous a task?