We, at least, can leave them to their work, and escape
to the shade of the orchards and the vineyards. Like every Athenian
farmer, Hybrias has an olive orchard. The olives are sturdy trees. They
will grow in any tolerable soil and thrive upon the mountain slopes up
to as far as 1800 feet above sea level. They are not large trees, and
their trunks are often grotesquely gnarled, but there is always a
certain fascination about the wonderful shimmer of their leaves, which
flash from gray to silver-white in a sunny wind. Hybrias has wisely
planted his olives at wide intervals, and in the space between the
ground has been plowed up for grain. Olives need little care. Their
harvest comes late in the autumn, after all the other crops are out of
the way. They are among the most profitable products of the farm, and
the owner will not mind the poor wheat harvest "if only the olives do
well."[9]
William Davis, A Day in Old Athens
