Page:The Olive Its Culture in Theory and Practice.djvu/21

Rh olive that will not return ten per cent. of its weight in oil had better be abandoned for one that will. A large and fully developed tree has been known to yield as much as sixteen gallons of oil.

In Florence, Italy, Mr. Goodrich has found it a matter of increasing difficulty each year to get pure oil. In fact the manager of a large olive grove in the vicinity had the hardihood to tell him that he did not believe it possible to procure any there. The output of cotton seed oil in the United States is half a million tons, or seventeen million five hundred thousand gallons. In the late Congressional investigation into the Cotton Seed Oil Trust, it was developed that twenty-seven per cent. is exported to be used as an adulterant of olive oil. In Italy it is poured over the olives in the crusher to thoroughly mix the two oils. Originally cotton-seed oil was used to merely adulterate, which was bad enough, but of late it is pressed on the public with greater boldness.

The British Consul at Leghorn, in his report for 1886, states that the Florentine flasks in which pure olive oil was formerly shipped to the British market are now sent direct to London empty and there filled with cotton seed oil, and he warns the public accordingly. The following is from a late work in the interest of cotton seed oil: "It is hoped that in time the prejudice now existing against cotton seed oil in this country will be overcome and our people, like those of Europe, take to cooking their food in oil instead of using lard. That there is a growing demand for cotton seed oil for table use and culinary purposes is evidenced by the increased business of merchants who make a specialty of filling fancy bottles with cotton seed oil." We are all familiar with the fancy bottles and the blatant claim that they contain pure olive oil. These so called merchants are engaged in deceiving the public, in endeavoring to palm off cotton seed oil for olive oil. Cotton seed oil is refined by treatment with alkaline carbonates and caustic alkalies, and this fact is sufficient to condemn it as a food oil.