Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1906-04-04
BY F. L. OSWALD, NJ. d.


Etc)
They had an exposition of antiqui-
ties in Palermo last month, and the
city did justice to its memories of
three milleniums, but of all the mar
Vels and riddles Of the past, the most
interesting was an assortment of vege-
table curlosities that had been admit
led only by courtesy of the commits
sloners, at the repeated request of an
agricultural association.
1t was an exhibit of olive-tree relics
from Monte Gibello, where two patri-
archs of an ancient grove had recently
teen uprooted by landslide. Cross
sections of one tree IS feet in diameter.
computed age 700 years; portions from
the hollow trunk of another computed
at $50 years. Branches from both,
proving that the veterans had con-
trlbuted their share to the last harvest.
Estimates, that, before their death,
both had paid their nursery expenses
10000 times over. -
When were olives first brought to
Slcily?" was question that "stumped'
the gray-headed exhibitor of those tree
stumps. Long before San Enero' (the
Palermo patron saint was all he could
conjecture. Yes, very much earlier"
decided learned referee, probably by
the first Greciaa colonists, long time
before the foundation of Rome The
Greeks" he added, considered the OIL
i've tree the most precious present of
the Gods"
But to the mind of a foreigner the
further question arises: BY what freak
OF madness or perversity did mankind
como to neglect that supreme gift of
nature? Only third of one per cent.
OF our new world population derive
the needed fatty ingredients of their
diet from olive oil; the rest rely upon
less wholesome and enormously much
more expensive animal fats. The care
OF cow will cost its owner yearly
expenditure of 200 hours in labor and
from $50 to $50 in feed values, not to
mention the expense of stable building
and pasture fencing.
A young olive tree will ask it's pro-
prietor to help it for two hours the
frs year and for half an hour the
next and after that will not only agree
TO take care of itself for 1900 years,
but to improve steadily for the first
century and half. Then hold it's own
for another 100 years without appreci-
able symptoms of decrepitude.
And, in the meanwhile, yield a large
supply of the very best fat-substance
known to medical chemistry. Olive oil
can he kept sweet and perfectly whole
some for two years, and only by gross
neglect will become stale in a manner
thar is apt to develop digestive disor-
4 ders. And not very serious ones at
that. Prisoners fed on bread and su-
perannuated tree-oil complain of moth
ing worse than costiveness.
While, in spite Of the best possible
precautions, dairy products have been
known to generate some 20 different
diseases, three of them deadly
Pork is apt to infest the human or
ganism with a dozen different para
sites. besides some bowel complaints
which medical science has not yet
traced to visible germ. though its ac-
tivity leaves no doubt about its exist
ence. Yet pork-products of some kind
or other furnish the fat of some ESQ.,
{. 1000 of our fellow men, 10000, 900 of
them citizens of our model republic In
six of our south states, where olive
trees would prosper quite as well as
in the Mediterranean coast lands, pork
is dietetic staple of the laboring
classes.
Now it is true that to certain palates
the first taste of olive oil is slightly
repulsive. But it is equally certain
that. in great plurality of cases, that
aversion gives way to tolerance and
eventually to Partially. Thousands of
Italian gourmands would not exchange
their vegetable oil for the best table
butter if they could save money by the
transaction. They distinguish dozens
of different olive flavors and prize the
best as we would creamery deheates-
SEN
1t is just the same with animal fats.
Children often shudder at the first
taste of bacon; DR.. w. B. Carpenter
mentions a boy who could not keep it
on his stomach for a moment; Moses
and Mahommed went so far as to pro-
hibit it as an abomination; yet there
is no doubt that multitudes of our fell
low men can develop such a thing as a
pork habit: they love bacon for its
own sake, and would buy it at four
times its present price. Tell MIN his
cure isn't worth the COST" said Charlie
magne in reply to a communication
from Spanish doctor who offered to
relieve his marasmus If he would
agree to abstain from his weekly bar
becues of boar steaks
The Mingrellian ambassadors quailed
at Abdul Hassan's ultimatum. but. af-
ter days elaboration, informed him
that. with all their anxiety to propi-
tiate the wrath of Allah, the national
In