The Greeks had a variety of other oils besides that procured from the olive,[[1608]] as walnut-oil, oil of terebinth, oil of sesamum, oil of violets, oil of almonds, oil of Palma Christi, or castor-oil, oil of saffron, oil of Cnidian laurel, oil of datura, oil of lentisk, oil of mastic, oil of myrtle, and oil of mustard. They had, likewise,[[1609]] the green and wild-olive oil, and the double-refined oil of Sicyon, together with imitations of the Spanish and Italian oils.
As fruit of all kinds was in great request among the Greeks, they had recourse to numerous contrivances[[1610]] for ensuring an unfailing supply throughout the year. At many of these our gardeners may, perhaps, smile, but they were, nevertheless, most of them ingenious, and, probably, effectual, though the fruit thus preserved may have been dear when brought to market. Into the details of all their methods it will be unnecessary to enter: the following were the principal and most curious. Walnuts, chestnuts, filberts, &c., were gathered and kept in the ordinary way. They understood the art of blanching almonds, which were afterwards dried in the sun. Medlars, service-berries, winter-apples, and the like, having been gathered carefully, were simply laid up in straw, whether on the loft-floor or in baskets. This, likewise, was sometimes the case with quinces, which, together with apples and pears, were, on other occasions, deposited in dry fig-leaves. For these, in the case of pears and apples, walnut-leaves were often substituted, sometimes piled under and over them in heaps, at other times wrapped and tied about the fruit, the hues and odours of which they were supposed greatly to improve.
Citrons,[[1611]] pomegranates,[[1612]] apples, quinces, and pears, were preserved in heaps of sand, grapestones, oak, poplar, deal, or cedar sawdust, sometimes sprinkled with vinegar, chopped straw, wheat, or barley, or the seeds of plants, all of which sufficed equally to exclude the external air. Another method with apples[[1613]] was to lay them up surrounded with sea-weed in unbaked jars, which were then deposited in an upper room free from smoke and all bad smells. When sea-weed was not procurable they put each apple into a small separate jar closely covered up and luted. These apple-jars were often lined with a coating of wax. Figs were, in like manner, preserved green[[1614]] by being enclosed in so many small gourds. Citrons and pomegranates were often suffered to remain throughout the winter on the tree, defended from wet and wind by being capped with little fictile vases bound tightly to the branches to keep them steady. Others enclosed these fruits, as well as apples, in a thick coating of gypsum, preventing their falling off by binding the stem to the branches with packthread. Nor was it unusual, even when gathered, to envelope apples, quinces, and citrons, in a covering of the same material, or potter’s clay, or argillaceous earth, mixed with hair, sometimes interposing between the fruit and this crust a layer of fig-leaves, after which they were dried in the sun. When at the end, perhaps, of a whole year the above crust was broken and removed the fruit came forth perfect as when plucked from the bough. It is possible, therefore, that, in a similar manner, mangoes, mangusteens, and other frail and delicate fruit of the tropics, might be brought fresh to Europe, and that, too, in such abundance as to make them accessible to most persons. To render pears and pomegranates durable, their stems were dipped in pitch, after which they were hung up. In the case of the latter the fruit itself was sometimes thus dipped; and, at other times, immersed in hot sea-water, after which it was dried in the sun. One mode of preserving figs was to plunge them in honey so as neither to touch each other, nor the vessel in which they were contained; another, to cover a pile of them with an inverted vase of glass, or other pellucid substance, closely luted to the slab on which it stood. Cherries were gathered before sunrise, and put, with summer savory above and below, into a jar, or the hollow of a reed, which was then filled with sweet vinegar, and closely covered. Mulberries were preserved in their own juice, apples and quinces in pitched coffers, wrapped in clean locks of wool, pears by being placed in salt[[1615]] for five days, and afterwards dried in the sun, as were also figs, which were strung by the stalks to a piece of cord or willow twig, like so many hanks of onions[[1616]] as they are sold in modern times. Elsewhere they were preserved, as dates in Egypt, by being pressed together in square masses, like bricks.[[1617]] Damascenes were kept in must or sweet wine, as were also pears, adding sometimes a little salt and jujubes, with leaves, above and below. The same course was pursued with apples and quinces, which communicated to the liquor additional durability and the most exquisite fragrance. Quinces, whose sharp effluvia prevented their being placed with other fruit, were often put into closely-covered jars, and kept floating in wine to which they imparted a delicious perfume. The same custom was observed with respect to figs, which were cut off on the bearing branch a little before they were ripe, and hung, so as not to touch each other, in a square earthen jar. Upon the same principle apples were preserved in jars hermetically sealed, which, for the sake of coolness, were plunged in cisterns or deep wells.[[1618]]
It may, perhaps, be worth while to mention, in passing, that, like ourselves, the ancients possessed the art of extracting perry and cider[[1619]] from their pears and apples; and from pomegranates a species of wine which is said to have been of an extremely delicate flavour. The Egyptians, also, made wine from the fruit of the lotos.[[1620]]
[1487]. The importance of this branch of cultivation in some countries may be perceived from the fact, that in France it is said to afford employment to 2,200,000 families, comprising a population of 6,000,000, or nearly one-fifth of the population of the entire kingdom. Times, Aug. 3, 1838. The quantity of land devoted to the culture of the vine was estimated in 1823, at 4,270,000 acres, the produce of which amounted to 920,721,088 gallons, 22,516,220l. 15s. sterling. Redding, Hist. of Modern Wines, chap. iv. p. 56. In the Greek Budget of 1836, the tax on cattle produced 2,100,000 drachmas, on bees 35,000, olive-grounds 64,776, and on vineyards and currant-grounds 58,269.—Parish, Diplomatic History of the Monarchy of Greece, p. 175.
[1488]. Or according to Athenæus, from the shores of the Red Sea. Deipnosoph. xv. 17.
[1489]. Iliad. β. 561. γ. 184. ι. 152, 294. Cf. Pind. Isth. viii. 108.
[1490]. Paus. x. 38. 1.
[1491]. Athen. i. 61.