Page:A Practical Treatise on Olive Culture, Oil Making and Olive Pickling.djvu/60

 when it can be drawn off into other cans or packages for the trade.

But, this mode of refining by natural process can be hastened by filtering in cylindrical tin vessels, with cotton batting at the bottom, in which case it can be bottled and sold immediately after. It has then, when just made, a freshness and delicacy of flavor which does not exist to an equal degree in the older product, which gains only a finer color by time.

Decandolle estimates the quantity of oil produced by the olive, at fifty per cent of its weight. Sieuve says that one hundred pounds of olive berries will give about thirty-two pounds of oil, while other writers give an average proportion of product of twenty-five per cent.

It is, however, proper to state that this proportion varies, naturally, according to the variety of the olive. Some of an inferior quality are known to give as little as fifteen, and even ten per cent. On the other hand, it will vary according to the early or late picking of the crop, for, as I have already said: if you wish quality, pick early; if you wish quantity, pick late.

The Scriptural books teach us how the olive oil was considered as a symbol of the divine grace, and, consequently, the important place it occupied in the religious ceremonies of the