Page:The Olive Its Culture in Theory and Practice.djvu/13

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Here where plagues were sent forth broadcast they were first laid under an injunction not to harm the oil and the wine. Does it not then seem that the land of the olive and the wine is an especially favored one? These Biblical references are interesting for their antiquity and the view they give us of the management of the olive at that remote period. The manner of harvesting, of oil making by treading the berries, of planting on fertile plains where sycamores grow, of seeking the wild olives on the mountains where the birds had scattered the seeds, of the danger of the olive from fire, all this is repeated to-day in the European home of the olive. The oil olive, being essentially a product of civilization, no longer flourishes in Palestine; without man's fostering care it soon reverts to its wild state and ceases to fruit, and finally disappears altogether.

The ancients regarded the olive with reverence and awe. The ease with which it sprang into renewed life, the vitality it possessed, and the hoary age it attained, all led them to endow it with a divine origin.

The Greeks dedicated it to Minerva, and with evergreen olive leaves bound the brows of brave captains and citizens most marked for virtue and wisdom.

The Romans held the olive in a much greater esteem than their simple appreciation of the oil, and mingled the leaves in the triumphal crowns of the defenders of the country.

Professor Caruso says: "The olive, because of the moderate care which it requires and the copiousness and value of its product, may be considered as a