every other year.

Like the grape, the olive serves a two-fold function after it is
gathered. Some are set aside to be eaten and the rest are made into
oil, which comforts the body of man not only within but without, for
it follows us into the bath and the gymnasium. Those berries from
which it is proposed to make oil are usually stored in heaps on tables
for several days where they may mellow a little. Each heap in turn is
carried in crates to the oil jars and to the _trapetus_, or pressing
mill, which is equipped with both hard and rough stones. If the olives
are left too long in the heap they heat and spoil and the oil is
rancid, so if you are unable to grind promptly the heaps of olives
should be ventilated by moving them. The yield of the olive is of two
kinds, oil which is well known and _amurca_, of the use of which many
are so ignorant that one can often see it streaming from the mill and
wasting upon the ground where it not only discolours the soil, but
in places where it collects even makes it sterile: while if applied
intelligently it has many uses of the greatest importance to
agriculture, as, for instance, by pouring it around the roots of
trees, chiefly the olive itself, or wherever it is desired to destroy
weeds.[103]

_5 deg. HOUSING TIME_

LVI. "Up to this moment," cried Agrius, "I have been sitting in the
barn with the keys in my hands waiting for you, Stolo, to bring in the
harvest."

"Lo, I am here at the threshold," replied Stolo. "Open the gates for
me."

_Of storing hay_

In the first place, it is better to house your hay than to leave it
stacked in the field, for thus it makes more palatable provender, as
may be proven by putting both kinds before the cattle.

_Of storing grain_

LVII. But corn should be stored in an elevated granary, exposed to the
winds from the east and the north, and where no damp air may reach it
from places near at hand. The walls and the floors should be plastered
with a stucco of marble dust or at least with a mixture of clay and
chaff and amurca, for amurca will serve to keep out mice and weevil
and will make the grain solid and heavy. Some men even sprinkle their
grain with amurca in the proportion of a quadrantal to every thousand
modii of grain: others crumble or scatter over it, for the same
purpose, other vermifuges like Chalcidian or Carian chalk or wormwood,
and other things of that kind. Some farmers have their granaries under
ground, li