come larger; 10 or 12 bunches only are left on the most vigorous trees. It is reckoned that a good tree produces, one year with another, about the value of 10 or 12 shillings to the proprietor. A pretty considerable trade is carried on with dates in the interior part of the country, and large quantities of them are exported to France and Italy. The crop is gathered towards the end of November. When the bunches are taken from the tree, they are hung up in some very dry place where they may be sheltered and secure from insects.

Even the stones, though very hard, are not thrown away. They give them to their camels and sheep as food, after they have bruised them or laid them to soften in water.

The date, as well as other trees which are cultivated, exhibits great variety in its fruit, with respect to shape, size, quality, and even colour. They are reckoned to be at least 20 different varieties. Dates are very liable to be pierced by worms, and they soon corrupt in moist or rainy weather.

From what has been said, it may easily be perceived that there is, perhaps, no tree whatever used for so many and so valuable purposes as the date-tree.

[Linn. Des Fontaines. Editor.

SECTION XI.

Olive-Tree.

Olea.-LINN.

THIS genus includes seven known species; of which the four following are chiefly worthy of notice.

1. 0. Europea.

European Olive.

An ever-green tree common to the woods of the south of France, Spain, and Italy, with lanceolate, very entire, grey, ferruginous leaves, downy or silvery underneath: flowers in small axillary branches, small white, with short tubes spreading open at the top; fruit a superior-berried drupe, of an oblong spheroidal form, and of a yellowish green colour, turning black when ripe. This plant affords a great abundance of varieties and subvarieties, differing

chiefly in the shape of the leaf, or the size of the fruit. With a little protection in severe frost, it may be maintained against walls in the neighbourhood of London; and in Devonshire it will grow as a standard in more open situations, and is seldom injured by the frosts: but we have not warmth of climate enough to bring the fruit to perfection.

The olive abroad is easily propagable by shoots; but the best of bearing trees are reared from grafts on the stocks of olives of an inferior kind. Olive-shoots are ingrafted when in flower: the trees are commonly planted in the form of a quincunx, and in rows at a considerable distance from one another. Between the rows vines are usually planted or grain is sown. Like many other fruittrees, olives bear well only once in every two years. In England the olive is propagated by layers alone.

Olives have an acrid, bitter, and extremely unpleasant taste, though pickling renders them less disagreeable; and fashion, that regulates our food as well as our dress, has so long and so generally proposed them as a luxury, that the unpleasantness of their taste is gradually gotten the better of, and even relished by those who are much accustomed to them. The Lucca olives, which are smaller than the other sorts, have the weakest taste; the Spanish, which are the largest, have the strongest; the Provence, which are of a middle size, are usually most approved.

Olives designed for preservation are gathered before they are ripe. The art of preparing them consists in divesting them of their bitterness, in preserving their green colour, and in impregnating them with a brine of aromatised sea-salt, which very much improves the taste they would otherwise possess. In some parts of Provence, after the olives have lain some time in the brine, they remove them, take out the kernel, and put a caper in its place. These olives are preserved in the purest oil; and when prepared, strongly stimu. late the stomach in winter. Ripe olives are eaten without any preparation, excepting a little seasoning of pepper, salt and oil; for they are extremely tart, bitter, and erosive.

The most valuable part of the olive, however, is its oil. The quan tity of this depends upon the nature of the soil in which the plant grows, on the kind of olive which is cultivated, on the care taken in gathering and expressing the fruit, and on the separation of the part to be extracted. If the olives be unripe, the oil will be intole

rably bitter; if over-ripe, it will be unguinous. The kind of trees that yield coarse oil have this property: they are still, however, expressed for the use of lamps and soaperies.

The olives for expression are gathered in November or December. They should be put in hair or woollen bags, and pressed immediately to obtain a pure and fine oil: for inferior purposes they may remain in heaps, and be pressed with less care in the gross, The fruits are first bruised in a round trough, under a millstone, rolling perpendicularly over them; and when sufficiently mashed are put into the trough of an olive-press, bearing down upon them by means of a strong screw. By turning the screw all the liquor is pressed out of the olives, and is called virgin-oil; after which hot water being poured upon the remainder in the press, a coarser oil is obtained. Olive-oil will not keep good longer than a year; after which period it becomes rancid.

Oil of olives is largely employed in medicine in the form of balsams, liniments, emollients, and ointments. It is found useful as au antidote against the poison of vipers, and insects of various kinds. The best soap is made of it, mixed with Alicant salt-worl and quick-lime,

2. O. Capensis.
Cape Olive.

A shrub, with a straight jointed trunk; leaves ovate, very entire, flat or waved, paler beneath; flowers white, small, in racemes, ap. pearing in June and July.)

2. 0. Americana.

American-Olive,

A plant with leaves opposite, lanceolate elliptic, very entire, evergreen; racemes narrowed, axillary; all the bractes permanent, connate, small; segments of the corol resolute; male and female flowers on the same plant with hermaphrodites.

4. O. Fragrans.

Sweet-scented Olive,

A large tree of Japan; branches obscurely four.cornered ; leaves

decussate, lanceolate, serrate; peduncles, lateral, aggregate, one

flowered, very fragrant.

SECTION XII.

Vine.

[Pantologia.

Vitis. LINN.

Of this genus of plants we know twelve species, natives of the East or of America, with the exception of the common vine which is found in all temperate countries. The following are cultivated. 1. V. vinifera. Common vine.

The first is of by far the most consequence; and it is characterised by having lobed, sinuate, naked leaves. It has an abundance of varieties, which we have neither space to detail, nor can perceive any utility in attempting to do so. They are alike propagated from layers or cuttings. The former is the method usually practised, but the latter seems much the better. In order to propagate vines by cuttings, such shoots should be chosen as are strong and wellripened, of the last year's growth; and these should be cut from the old vine, just below the place where they were produced, tak. ing a knot of the two years wood to each, which should be pruned smooth. The upper part of the shoot should then be cut off, so as to leave the cutting about sixteen inches long. These cuttings are to be placed with their lower part in the ground, in a dry place, laying some litter about their roots to prevent them from drying. Here they should remain till the beginning of April, which is the time to plant them. They are then to be taken up and wiped clean, and if very dry, they should stand with their lower parts in water six or eight hours. Then, having prepared the beds for them, they are to be set at about six feet distance from each other, making their heads slant a little towards the wall. The cutting is to be so buried in the ground, that only the uppermost bud be upon a level with the surface; the earth is then to be well closed about the plant, and a little mould heaped up over the eye of the bud, to keep it

from drying. After this no more trouble is necessary than to keep the ground clear from weeds, and to nail up the shoot as it grows, to the wall, rubbing off the side shoots. The Michaelmas following, if the cuttings have produced strong shoots, they should be pruned down to two eyes. In the spring following the ground is carefully to be dug up about the shoots, and the stalks to be earthed up to the first eye. During the summer all the lateral shoots must be rubbed off as they appear, and only the two from the two eyes which were left must be encouraged; these, as they grow, are to be nailed up against the wall; and in the middle of July they should be shortened, by nipping off their tops, and this will greatly strengthen the shoot. At the Michaelmas following these should he pruned, leaving them each three eyes, if strong; but if weakly, only two. The next summer there will be two shoots from each shoot of the last year's wood; but if there should be two from one eye, which is sometimes the case, the weaker is to be rubbed off. At Midsummer the ends of the shoots are to be pinched off as before; all the weak lateral shoots are to be displaced, as in the preceding summer. And the whole management is to be the same. This is all the culture necessary to young vines.

As to the management of grown vines, it is to be observed, that these rarely produce any bearing shoots from wood that is more than one year old; the great care must therefore be always to have plenty of this wood in every part of the tree. The bearing shoots for the following year should be left at the pruning with four eyes each. The under one of these does not bear, and consequently there are only three which do. Many leave more eyes on the shoots, that they may have more fruit, which is the consequence ; but then the fruit is much poorer; and this is so well known in the wine countries, that there are laws to direct that no more than such a number of eyes are to be left on each shoot, for the grapes would else be of a poor juice, and destroy the reputation of their wine. Each of the three eyes left will produce two or three bunches; so that each shoot will give six or nine bunches, which is as much as it can bring to any perfection. The shoots must be laid in at about eighteen inches asunder against the wall; for if they are closer, when the side-shoots are produced there will be no room to train them in up on the wall; and the largeness of the leaves of the vine