Page:A Practical Treatise on Olive Culture, Oil Making and Olive Pickling.djvu/71

 3. The lye should be left to settle as completely as possible before covering the olives with it, otherwise the strength of its sediment would spot many of them.

4. The olives should be covered with sacks or straw, with stones above, in order to keep the top ones from floating, in which case they would turn black.

5. The vessels should be so disposed as to allow the lye to be drawn off rapidly and completely, otherwise by too long a contact with this strong lye, some of the olives would be spotted or would turn soft.

While operating on large quantities, the wooden troughs should be disposed in such a manner that the same lye can be used in turn for all the olives that are to be pickled, provided, however, it is drawn every time in a separate trough where its strength can be regulated by a slight addition of fresh concentrated lye of a higher degree, and care taken that it settles before using it again.

It can thus be seen that the pickling of the olive is a very simple, very rapid, and very cheap operation. The more so, as the moderate expense of making the lye, of which a small quantity covers great many pounds of olives, can be brought down nearly to nothing by its use, or its sale; as a winter tree wash, for it happens to be the very best preparation that can be used to that