Vol. XVH No. 43-- 



THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 



40.1 



The export of logwood fell to less than half of that of 

 r.H6, but logwood extracts kept up steadily, and brought 

 up the total value of logwood and its products to the 

 respectable sum of £540,000. Ginger and pimento each 

 brought in about £7 0,000. 



Owing to war condition.^, the export of citrus fruits fell 

 off considerably, but, as a set off to that, a remarkable 

 demand sprung up for orange oil, and £47,000 was received 

 for this produce during the year under review. Unfortunatt'ly, 

 with the growth of the industry, dishonesty has appeared in the 

 form of' adulteration by kerosene and cottonseed oils Active 

 steps have been taken to check this evil. It may be men- 

 tioned that the detection of cotton-seed oil adulteration of 

 orange oil is easily accomplished by the grease spot test on 

 paper, so that buyers can test their oils by this simple means. 



Honey has become under war conditions a lucrative pro- 

 duct in Jamaica. The honey exported in 1917 was sold for 

 £40,000, at an average of 5.v. G'-i'. per gallon, three times the 

 price of honey exported before the war. Bee keepers are 

 reaping a profit they had scarcely hoped for. 



The fibre plantation at l.ititz has made great progress, 

 there being at least 1,000,000 sisal plants now established at 

 that station. Provision has been made for an exiension of 

 300 acres daring the current year, and it would seem 

 that a lucrative industry has been started for that par- 

 ticularly dry district of the island. The conclusion come 

 to in this experiment is that in poor soil plants do not 

 make such robust growth as in more fertile soils, and 

 therefore closer planting is advisable in poor soils. It 

 is also stated that it is advisable to cultivate a small area 

 round each plant in the field to break up the hard soil, and 

 then to mulch this with gra.is. Plants so treated are greatly 

 improved in vigour. The experiments at Lititz have corro- 

 borated the conclusions reached in llast Africa that 

 the planting of bulbils is much more satisfactory than 

 the planting of suckers. In fact, the report under 

 review stales that if a plantation is kept in good cc)ndi- 

 tion no suckers will be allowed to grow, as they con- 

 sume a great deal of nourishment, and their development 

 impoverishes the parent plant, and causes it to pole pre- 

 maturely. 



The report includes a special report on the Ciovernment 

 Stock Farm at Hope. This will _ be dealt wiih at more 

 lenath in a future number. The I department of Agriculture 

 in Jamaica is evidently doing useful work in many directions. 



Vanilla CJrop of Guadek>upe. —It is reported by the 

 United States Consul at Gaudeloupe, according to the 



Jiiimrv and Esscn'ial Oil Rccin/. September 1918, that the 

 crop of vanilla which was harvested and cured during the 

 first six months of 1918 proved to be the best that Guade- 

 loupe had produced. The total exports of vanilla for the 

 year 1910 were 19,401 ft., which fell in i917 to 41.985 lb., 

 whereas in the first six months of the present year no less 

 than 69,652 ft. were exported to the I'nited States alone. 

 In spite of the exceptionally large crop, prices for both green 

 and cured beans did not (all below those paid during 1917, 

 the average prices for both years having been 4 francs per 

 kilo for green, and L'O francs per kilo for well cured beans. 

 Most of the exporters succeeded in shipping their produce 

 before the I'nited States War Trade Board prohibited the 

 importation of vanilla from the West Indie. «, and it is prob- 

 able that the total quantity of cured beans at present unship- 

 ped in ( Juadeli'Upe does not exceed IS.QOO ft. 



DECREASING SUPPLY OF CAMPHOR 



From very early times camphor has been held in high 

 estimation, chiefly tnr medicinal and sanitary purpose.-. Id 

 recent years it has been increasingly used industrially, particu- 

 larly for the production of celluloid. The supply, however, 

 has by no means kept pace with the demand. In several 

 recent issues of the Peijamciv and Esseitfiai Oil I<ti'ircl, 

 attention has been directed to the increasing difficulty in 

 obtaining supplies of raw camphor for refineries in the United 

 Kingdom. This deficiency appears undoubtedly to be due to 

 two causes, which, acting together, are gradually shutting out 

 the crude article from importation both into the United 

 Kingdom and into the L'nited Siartes. In the first place, 

 there is the very natural desire of the Japanese to expert the 

 finished article rather than the crude material for British and 

 American factories to refine. Secondly, when it is remem- 

 bered that most of the camphor in the world's market comes 

 from Formosa, the marked decrease in the productiveness of 

 the camphor forests there must needs tend to a 

 deficiency in the supply of the product. The progressive 

 exhaustion of the camphor trees in the readily accessible 

 districts of that great Eastern island, coupled with the 

 savage nature of its interior and its inhabitants, renders the 

 problem of keepins; up the supply "f camphor an extremely 

 difficult one. When it is remembered that comparatively- 

 little has been done in the way of new plantations to replace 

 the wild trees which are disappearing, it is not likely 

 that the situation will become easier in the near future. 

 It appears also that conditions in the Chinese camphor 

 districts are more or less the same as to the pro- 

 gressive exhaustion of ihe trees Xot only are the 

 shipments of crude camphor to the United States becoming 

 smaller and smaller, but the refined cominy, in i^ much less 

 than enough to meet the demand. In Japan al.?o. an. 

 extreme scarcity of supp'y is felt, s > much so that a gov- 

 ernment commission has been apu >inted to endeavour to 

 increase camphor prolicd-n in the Taiwan district, through 

 personal inspection and supervision of camphor plants there. 

 The greatest trouble now being experienced in Japan is the 

 scarcity of labour, and the preference on the part of growers 

 to raise other crops. 



Of course, the ."hortage of supply has been accompanied 

 by considerably higher paces cam ihor oil being quoted: 

 brown, 160y. to 170'. per cwt.: and white as much as • 

 175.V-. to "JOO.f. : and yet the refiners are often unable to obtaioi 

 any quantity even at these rates. 



It is stiggested in the journal referred to above that 

 there might be a hopeful outlook commercially for planters 

 in some of the tropical countries to experiraent.m the acclima- 

 tization of the camphor tree {Ci/i>/im/>mu»i CampJiora). 

 It is not merely a question of whether the trade- shall or 

 shall not become a complete monopoly of Japan, but the 

 even more important question of ensuring that sufficient 

 camphor for the world's requirement is forthcoming. 



It must be remembered in this connexion that, as was 

 pointed out in the . \grici(lti(ral News, Vol. XVI, pp. 179 and 

 317, there ate at least two distinct varietal types of the 

 camphor tree, one of which only yields oil from which no 

 solid camphor is obtainable. It is suggested that in estab- 

 lishing a camphor plantation great care should be tak^n 

 in planting only seeds from tr^es well known to produce 

 solid camphor, or to propagate this desiraHle variety by cut- 

 tings. As far as is known at present, no camphor iree grow- 

 ing in the We-t Indies produces anything but the oil. 



