Page:A Practical Treatise on Olive Culture, Oil Making and Olive Pickling.djvu/58

 they can be crushed without further delay, or be placed in sacks in which they can either be kept for a while longer, or be shipped to an oil manufacturer if the grower has not secured the simple appliances required for making the oil himself.

I have made two plain sketches of a press and a crushing stone, which will be found annexed to this work. They are far from being as perfect as they might be, but I never was very proficient in the art of sketching, and mean by them only to give a general idea of the simplicity and cheapness of the machinery and appliances with which I have seen oil made in the old country. Steam power is used in most of the large oil-mills of Europe, but farmers with a few hundred or even a few thousand trees can understand by my sketches the kind of apparatus they need, and the facility with which they can take care of their own crops.

The first one of those two sketches shows the kind of rolling stone employed in crushing the berries. Set in motion by a horse, it revolves in a circular trough in masonry, or wood, in which the olive berries are thrown, discarding those that may have fermented; a thick paste is thus obtained, which is placed in straw bags of a circular shape, open at the top, which are then piled up from eight to ten at a time under a press in the style of the one represented by the second sketch.

The first pressing, made slowly and gently,