Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/110

82 variety of conditions: firstly, the kind of tree and mode of cultivation; secondly, the time chosen for gathering, whether in October, before the fruit is ripe, or in the two following months; thirdly, the manner of gathering.

In Mytilene, and generally in the Levant, the olives are beaten from the tree with staves. The objection to this is that the operation is generally performed violently and clumsily, and the young shoots of the olive which contain the germ of the next year's crop, and which are put forth in the autumn, are broken off in the course of the beating. The nature of the olive-tree is to renew these shoots annually in the autumn; consequently, if they are then broken off, the tree has no germs for the crop of the ensuing year; and this is said to be one chief reason why the olive-trees of Mytilene only produce fruit every two years. In the south of France ladders are employed to reach the branches.

Fourthly, the quality of the oil depends on the time that elapses between the gathering of the crop and its grinding. In Europe they send it to the mill immediately after gathering it; but in Turkey this cannot be done till the tithe of the gathered crop has been taken. The delay of collecting this tithe detains the olives from the mill till about February. The olive kept in store during the interval of two or three months between the gathering and grinding loses something of its freshness, and cannot be preserved except by salting,—an additional expense. Next the mode of grinding has to be considered. Where the oil is carefully made,