“There are some which look as though they were planted by Noah after he left the ark. They are ugly-looking trees,” added Murray.
“The people do not plant them for their beauty, but for the fruit they yield. You see they are in regular rows, like an apple-orchard at home. They start the trees from slips, which are cut off in January. The end of the slip is quartered with a knife, and a small stone put into the end to separate the parts, and the slip stuck into the ground. The earth is banked up around the plant, which has to be watered and tenderly cared for during the first two years of its growth. In ten years these trees yield some returns; but they are not at their best estate till they are thirty years old. The olives we eat”—
“I never eat them,” interrupted Murray, shaking his head.
“It is an acquired taste; but those who do like them are usually very fond of them. The olive which comes in jars for table use is picked before it is quite ripe, but when full grown; and it is pickled for a week in a brine made of water, salt, garlic, and some other ingredients. The best come from the neighborhood of Seville.”
“But I don’t see how they make the oil out of the olive. It don’t seem as though there is any grease in it,” said Sheridan.
“The berry is picked for the manufacture of oil when it is ripe, and is then of a purple color. It is gathered in the autumn; and I have seen the peasants beating the trees with sticks, while the women and children were picking up the olives on the ground. The women drive the donkeys to the mill, bearing the berries in the panniers. The olives are crushed on a big stone hollowed out for the purpose, by passing a stone roller over them, which is moved by a mule. The pulp is then placed in a press not unlike that you have seen in a cider-mill. The oil flows out into a reservoir under the press, from which it is bailed into jars big enough to contain a man: these jars are sunk in the ground to keep them cool. The mass left in the press after the oil is extracted is used to feed the hogs, or for fuel.”
“And is that the stuff they put in the casters?” asked Murray, with his nose turned up in disgust.
“That is certainly olive-oil,” replied the doctor. “You look as though you did not like it.”
“I do not: I should as soon think of eating lamp-oil.”