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THE AQEICULTURAL NEWS 



September 14, 1912. 



USEFUL INFORMATION CONCERNING 



CAMPHOR. 



The Department of Agriculture of the Federated Malay 

 States has issued recently Bulletin No. 15, which deals with 

 the cultivation and preparation of camphoi- in the Federated 

 Malay States. The following information, of more immediate 

 interest in the AVest Indies, ia abstracted from parts of this 

 bulletin. 



VAKIETIES OF CAMPHOR. In the East, two distinct kinds 

 of camphor are known, that from the tree called Ciimamo- 

 invin Camphora known as Chinese, Japanese, or Formosan 

 camphor, and the product known as Borneo camphor, that ia 

 obtained from the plant DryoljaloMops aromatica, which grows 

 in Borneo, Sumatra and Malaya. The two products are 

 distinct chemical compounds, but it is possiVile to prepare 

 ordinary camphor from Borneo camphoi. A third camphor 

 is known, called Nagai camphor, which is yielded by Blumea 

 hahami/era, a plant growing in Burma. 



r^uppLY AXD USES OF CAMPHOR. The exports of camphor 

 from Japan in 1905, 1906 and 1907 were 1,350 tons value 

 £261,756; 1,570 tons va\ue £370,545; and 1,805 tons value 

 £512,730: from China in 1905 and 1906, they were 320 tons 

 value £59,840 and 882 tons value £222,264. Most of the 

 Japanese camphor comes from Formosa; information con- 

 cerning the production in this island was given on page 9 of 

 the present volume of the Agricultural News. 



About 70 per cent, of all the camphor obtained is used 

 in the manufacture of celluloid, or xylonite; most of the 

 remainder is employed for medicinal, pharmaceutical and 

 sanitary purposes. An idea is prevalent that camphor is used 

 largely in the manufacture of smokeless powders and explo- 

 sives; only a small amount is at present actually employed 

 in this way. 



SYNTHESIS OF CAMPHOR. As is Well known, synthetic 

 camphor has been produced on a commercial scale, but it 

 cannot compete successfully with natural camphor for any 

 length of time. It is made from oil of turpentine, and its 

 preparation in the countries where it used to be made — 

 England and Germany — has probably ceased because of the 

 fall in price of natural camphor since 1907. Its existence 

 is useful, however, because it prevents any extensive inflation 

 of the prices of the natural product. 



DISTILLATION OF CAMPHOR IN JAPAN. The camphor is 

 steam-distilled and the vapour condensed in a box, divided 

 into compartments and placed upside down, in water, in 

 a larger, shallower box. The sides of the inverted box 

 extend above the bottom, and water is constantly allowed to 

 run on to this box, keeping it cool and renewing the layer of 

 water in the larger, shallower box which acts as a seal. 

 A third box is inverted over the first, and is made in a similar 

 way to condense any vapour that may escape; in both cases 

 holes are made in opposite corners of the partitions in the 

 boxes in order to cause the vapours to travel by a circuitous 

 route. The crade camphor and oil are skimmed from the 

 surface of the water or scraped from the sides of the condenser; 

 separation of the two products is efifected as far as possible 

 by pressure. 



CULTIVATION or CAMPHOR. A method of cultivation recom- 

 mended by the United States Agricultural Department was 

 described on page 5 of this volume of the Agricultural News. 

 In Malaya, befoie planting takes place, the seeds are soaked in 

 lukewarm water for twenty-four hours, and the resulting 

 .seedlings transplanted when about a foot high, the tops being 

 first cut off and the roots pruned. The transplanting is done 

 during the wet season, and careful weeding is necessary. 



Well-prepared nursery beds are employed, and sand is added to 

 the soil so that it may be sufficiently porous not to allow the 

 seeds to rot during their long period of germination. So far, 

 this method of propagation, as well as that from rcot cuttings,, 

 has not proved successful in Malaya, and it is considered ;it 

 present that the best way to obtain a stock of plants is to 

 import two-year-old seedlings from Japan, provided that the 

 price of these is reasonable. Success has been obtained by- 

 using this method. 



EXPERIMENTS IN DISTILLING; CAMPHOR. In initial experi- 

 ments, in Malaya, With material from Batu Tiga, Selangor, 

 26tt). of prunings, consisting of leaves 64-9 per cent, and 

 small stems 35 1 per cent, was used. This gave, as the result 

 of different distillations, 0'19Itx of distillate, the yield on the 

 original material being 1'06 per cent.; the proportion of oil in 

 the distillate was very small. 



Subsequently, experiments were carried out on a com- 

 mercial scale; a useful, detailed description of the apparatus 

 employed is given in the bulletin. Separate distillations gave- 

 the following results: — 



Weight of Percentage of Yield of Yield per 



material. whole plant. camphor and cent. 



oil in oz. 

 12-5 lb. Leaves 7 5 2 00 1-00 



30 0,, Stems (under 1-07 0-22' 



i-inch diame- 

 ter) 18 '2 

 93-0 „ Woody stems 9 '08 0-61 



(over i-inch 

 diameter) 56 3 

 29-5 „ Roots 180 507 MO 



The distillate from all parts except the roots consistecE 

 chiefly of solid camphor with very little oil. That from the 

 roots was comprised entirely of an oil apparently quite 

 distinct from that given by the other portion, and possessing 

 what is described as a lemon-camphor odour. The results 

 of the experiments are thus summarized in the bulletin: — 



(1) A yield of about 1 per cent, of camphor and oil 

 (consisting chietiy of camphor) may be obtained from prun- 

 ings from five-year-old plants and probably from younger 

 plants. 



(2) The distillation period should not exceed three 

 hours in the case of prunings, that is leaves and young 

 branches. 



(3) A much larger proportion of camphor is obtained 

 from the leaves than from the branches, and the yield frora 

 small twigs is greater than that from older branches in trees 

 of this age. 



(4) Air-drying of the leaves has no detrimental effect 

 on the yield, but loss would probably result if the leaves 

 were exposed to direct tropical sunlight. 



Further experiments were conducted during 1911-12^ 

 using a new condenser, the old one, which was a Liebig 

 condenser with four tubes round which cold water circulated, 

 having proved unsatisfactory, for reasons that are given. 

 The new condenser was made of teak: it was replaced later 

 by a metal condenser constructed of galvanized iron having 

 the following dimensions: length 3 feet 10 inches, breadth. 

 2 feet 4 inches, depth 1 foot 7 inches, extension of sides 

 over bottom 4 inches, length of exit pipe 6i inches, diameter 

 of exit pipe 2 inches. This was placed in the shallow box 

 used for the teak condenser, which was 4 feet long, 2 feet 

 6 inches broad and 1 foot 1 inch deep, the depth of water iii , 

 it being 6 inches. This condenser was found to give excel- 

 lent and constant results, the yields being considerably 

 increased. Further, the camphor was 'of a beautiful white 



