Page:A Practical Treatise on Olive Culture, Oil Making and Olive Pickling.djvu/51

 born in the oil regions of France, where the Picholine reigns supreme. I was saturated, I might say, from boyhood to manhood with Picholine oil and Picholine pickled olives. On my arrival at Napa, and while visiting its beautiful valley and the surrounding sections, I soon realized the correctness of the reports I had read about its climate compared to that of the south of France and of northern Italy, a very exact confirmation of which was given lately by Mr. Albert Sutliffe in the following words:

"The citizen of California who travels in Italy and the south of France cannot fail to remark the similarity of soil, climate, conformation of ground and general atmospheric conditions to those to which he has been accustomed on the Pacific Coast. In the vicinity of Marseilles the summer is almost absolutely rainless, while the winter rains are copious. The heat of midsummer is warm, but generally tempered by sea winds." It is thus that, guided as much by the sweet remembrances of the past as by the careful studies I made of the subject, I did not hesitate to adopt the Picholine for my own plantation.

Let us see now where the olive oils most reputed come from.

Elwood Cooper's Treatise on olive culture: Extending from the promontory of Saint Tropez, in France, to Lavonia, in Italy, in the gulf of Genoa, Nice is situated, whose reputation for the best oil has succeeded all other places in the world.