Page:The Olive Its Culture in Theory and Practice.djvu/26

22 the olive. The ancient Italian authors enumerated comparatively few, from twelve to sixteen, but a modern writer on the subject in that country has summed up to over three hundred. Each locality where olives have been grown has added a name suggested by chance appearance or local prejudice, until a perfect chaos exists, utterly meaningless to anyone outside of the narrow section where it may be familiar. Take some of the Spanish names for instance, such as the "Rabbit's eye," the "Pillow-case", the "Little round"—these are absurd and convey no significance to anyone not living in the province in Spain where they may be grown. They are evidently given to impart the idea of the shape of different berries and in ignorance of the fact that olives should not be classified by the appearance of the fruit, but by the characteristics of the tree, for the very sufficient reason that trees of entirely different appearance and habits, produce berries very similar in form.

In this State we are likely, as olive culture progresses, to find great difficulty in recognizing what an olive is from its name. We were launched with some Spanish varieties which to us have become Mission, then a number of French plants became known, and lastly the Italian are coming in. The Spanish have never shown the world any good oil, although it could undoubtedly be made there. The quality is probably somewhat affected by the latitude.

The French for years have drawn the bulk of their supply of oil from Italy and to-day the oil provinces of Northern Italy are overrun with French oil buyers, and bad oil cannot be made good, although the French are adepts at anything of this kind. If their oil has merit it is because it was properly made. Italy is the fountain head. Italy has long been the source of all the good oil we have ever known. Italy has carried the cultivation of this tree to greater perfection than any other country on the globe. How can we then do better than follow the classification of Professor Caruso, Professor of Agriculture of the National University of Pisa, who at the instance of the Italian Government has