Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1849 Excerpt:... LETTER IV. OLIVES ME FLOWER GIRL THE CATHEDRAL DANTE. Florence, November 20. Our time has passed very pleasantly since I last wrote to you, and we have taken several excursions into the beautiful country around Florence. One of the most interesting of these was to the Petraja, which is a villa belonging to the Grand Duke, where he has a manufactory of oil from the olives, which grow plentifully around the villa and over many of the neighbouring hills Their thin stiff foliage makes a peculiar rustling in the wind; and the very rough bark of the old trees looks as if they had stood the weather for many hundreds of years: and so they probably have. Some of the most ancient in the world still grow in the garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives (our Blessed Saviour's favourite spot on earth); and they are said to be the identical trees that grew there when He walked under the shade. The stems of old trees look like three or four pollard willows clustered together; and the greyish brown bark showing every here and there the white bleached wood underneath, as in cracks, adds to the likeness. The olive is an evergreen; and produces bunches of whitish flowers, succeeded by a fruit about the size of a sloe. The taste is bitter and nauseous; yet the country people may often be seen sitting under the olive-trees, and eating the fruit raw, as a relish to their dry bread. The olive gives a double harvest. The first is in or about August; when the fully ripe fruit falls from the tree, on sheets, or mats, spread out to catch it. The second is in October, when the tree is beaten with long sticks, that no olives may be left upon it. The olive is usually increased by transplanting the suckers from the old roots into a fresh soil. " As to the objection founded on the age...