In Sicily and the provinces of Reggio, Catanzaro, Cosenza and Lecce this tree flourishes without shelter; as far north as Rome, Aquila and Teramo it reqtiires only the slightest protection; in the rest of the peninsula itruns the risk of damage by frost every ten years or so.
The proportion of ground under olives is from 20 to 36% at Porto Maurizio, and in Reggio, Lecce, Ban, Chieti and Leghorn it averages from 10 to 19%.
In the olive there is great variety of kinds, and the methods of cultivation differ greatly in different districts; in Ban, Chieti and Lecce, for instance, there are regular woods of nothing but olive-trees, while in middle Italy there are olive-orchards with the interspaces occupied by crops of variotis kinds.
Reggio Calabria, Catanzaro, Cosenza, Lecce, Salerno, Naples and Caserta are the continental provinces which come next after Sicily.
In Italy Bernardino of Siena on the scholastic side, Robert of Lecce and Gabriel Barletta on the popular, are the chief names; in Germany these phases are represented by John Gritsch and John Geiler of Kaiserburg respectively.