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THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [April i, 1885. 



same type is found beside the shores of New Zealand, 

 and is said to be the degenerate offspring of seeds which 

 were distributed among the natives by Captain Cook. 

 This, however, is uncertain. That the cauliflower of 

 the present day should have been produced from the 

 brasiica oleracea, " with wavy sea-green leaves, tending to 

 no head, and flowering like wild mustard or charlock," 

 ought to be sufficient encouragement to experimentalists. 

 So much has already been achieved that it would seem 

 vain to fix a limit to further improvements. — Queensiander. 



ESSENTIAL OILS. 

 Among the various devices for making the soil of England 

 commercially profitable, the growing of flowers for the 

 sake of the essential oils, though it can hardly become a 

 great enterprise, deserves encouragement wherever success 

 is possible. A considerable acreage of land at Grove, near 

 Canterbury, has lately been planted with lavender and 

 mint, and the result has proved so successful that it has 

 been determined to establish extensive works on the spot, 

 in order to carry on the process of extracting- the essentia] 

 oils. So far there is no reason te question the profitable 

 outcome of the venture, though, of course, the demand for 

 the oils of lavender and peppermint is more limited than 

 for wheat or Kentish pippins. Still, they are used in more 

 industries than people generally know of, and tjiere is, 

 moreover, this to be said for them, that if the market is 

 not so great, neither is the competition for purchasers so 

 keen. No discovery of the laboratory has ever yet managed 

 to supply an ether which will reptace the natural scents 

 elaborated by Nature in the cells of wild herbs. Nor 

 can the cultivator of the plant yielding the precious oils 

 coutrive to so stimulate his crops that the products of one 

 locality will fetch the same figure as those of a more 

 favoured region. It is not more hopeless for the tobacco 

 grower of Germany to pass the rank leaves which have 

 matured under the Teutonic suns for real Habana, than it 

 is for the flower farmer of one spot seemingly as suitable 

 as any other to deceive the perfumer with the tale that 

 the herbs have been nurtured in a soil, the reputation of 

 which stands in greater esteem. Curiously enough, it does 

 not always follow that tin: lands of sunshine are always 

 the best for this description of harvest. Thus, the shores 

 of the Mediterranean, near Grasse and Nice, are the best 

 localities for the orange and mignonette, the perfection of 

 the essential oils extracted from the flowers and leaves of 

 these plants requiring low. warm, and sheltered spots. But 

 the violet grows sweeter and sweeter as we ascend from 

 the lowlands, and is most highly scented just as the foot 

 hills of the Alps are approached. Again, though France 

 and other Southern countries send us plenty of oil of pep- 

 permint and lavender, none of it cau rival that grown at 

 Mitcham, in Surrey, almost a suburb of London, which is 

 said to bring eight times the price of the foreign oils. It 

 is thus clear that the Kentish flower farmers have some 

 margin within which to work. Every year there is imported 

 into this country between two hundred and three hundred 

 thousand pounds weight of essential oils, the greater portion 

 of which — leaving out of account cassia, vanilla, cloves, and 

 lemon, which are scents of far-way lands — could just as 

 easily, and a great deal more profitably, be produced within 

 the bounds of the United Kingdom. Lavender, for example, 

 has for centuries been grown at Hitchin, in Hertfordshire, 

 and as a commercial speculation it dates back for at least 

 sixty years. The plants at present in cultivation do not 

 produce seed, being propagated by slip^ or by dividing 

 the roots. The crop is, ho wev«r, somewhat precarious. During 

 the severe winter of 1800 many of the plants were killed, 

 and of late years a peculiar fungus has so decimated them 

 that the price of the oil has, in consequence, risen con- 

 siderably. At Market Deeping, in Lincolnshire, where 

 lavender was formerly grown, the business has been dis- 

 continued on that account. Hitehiu, however, still harvests 

 the crop of about fifty acres — a sandy loam with a cal- 

 careous substratum being regarded as the best soil for the 

 purpose, while the most favourable position for the laven- 

 der plots is a sunny slope which the fogs do not reach, 

 and where light airs blow freely, but which is not so high 

 as to be in peril of early frosts. At Mitcham, Carshalton, 

 and Beddington, localities all near each other, about three 

 hundred acres are still under lavender, and a considerable 



area under mint, though here as elsewhere, for the reason 

 mentioned, and other causes connected with the altered 

 habits of the people, the culture is reported to be on the 

 wane. At one time it was an important industry, and the 

 Church tithes of the parishes in question were proportion- 

 ally valuable. The lavender flowers are collected in August 

 and taken direct to the still, when the turn out of oil to 

 a great extent depends on circumstances beyond the con- 

 trol of the farmer. If June and July have been bright 

 the result is satisfactory ; but if there has been dull, wet 

 weather during these mouths, only half as much oil will 

 be expressed. The oil from the stems is ranker and less 

 valuable than that from the flowers; consequently, the 

 portion which first distils over is collected separately, that 

 which appears after about an hour and a half bringing 

 a lower price. Should the flowers be distilled separately 

 a finer oil is obtained. But as the extra labour demanded 

 by the operation adds about ten shillings per lb. to the cost 

 of the oil, it is not usually done, since the "fractional 

 distillation " described effects nearly the same end. After 

 three years the oil — which has been mellowing up to that 

 date— deteriorates, unless it is mixed with alcohol, or 

 redistilled. In France, Piedmont, and especially the vicinity 

 of the villages of the Mont Vextoux district, and those to 

 the west of Montpellier, the collection and distillation of 

 lavender is widely practised ; but the very best French oil 

 does not approach in price that of the English article, 

 and the cheapest varieties are made by distilling the entire 

 plant. Some oil comes also from America. Near New 

 York the plant is affirmed by Professor Johnston not to 

 be very hardy, but in the neighbourhood of Philadelphia 

 it is grown inconsiderable quantities, chiefly for "sachets," 

 or sweet scent bags, and for "laying up linen," a use for 

 lavender which is, unhappily, not on the increase in this 

 country. The Lavandula spiea, which yields the "oil of 

 spike," is a variety which cannot be grown in this couutry 

 ^except in very sheltered situations, and is in any case inferior 

 to that yielded by the common species. Peppermint culture 

 requires no such nicety, and the distillation of the leaves 

 is a very simple operation. The oil is still in good demand 

 as a flavouring for lozenges, and as one of the drugs used 

 in the Pharmacopoeia both as a stomachic and as a means 

 of disguising the taste of other medicines. The cultivation 

 of roses for the distillation of the precious attar would, in 

 our uncertain climate, be a losing speculation, taking one 

 season with another, though the profits for a fine crop are 

 tempting enough to send some discouraged wheat-growers 

 into the business. The oil yielded by roses is very little; 

 hence it is said that twenty thousand blossoms are required 

 to yield a rupee weight of the "attar," which sells for 

 £10 sterling, a little fact which may suggest to the lady 

 that the "real Oriental attar" which she bought in the 

 Stamboul Bazaar for 10s. the. ounce was not quite what 

 the Moslem merchant so loudly swore by the Prophet it 

 was. In reality, the true attar is almost invariably adulterated 

 with sandal-wood oil, or dduted with sweet salad oil, even 

 in the Indian bazaars close to the far-famed rose gardens 

 of Ghazepore. This seems almost pardonable when we 

 remember that, during unfavourable seasons, it will take 

 as many as 1,000 roses to yield two grains of the oil. In 

 the forenoon the red blooms are collected by hand and 

 distilled into clay stills with twice their weight of water, — 

 the water which comes over being set to cool all night 

 and throwing up the thin film of oil which covers it in 

 the morning like cream on new milk. This is the attar, 

 which must be carefully swept off with a feather, and 

 transferred to a small phial. After repeating this oper- 

 ation night after night, and morning after morning, nearly 

 the whole of the oil has been extracted, the little which 

 it is impossible to separate so flavouring the liquid that it is 

 sold as "rose water," just as the minute particles left in 

 the course of distilling lavender of peppermint are known 

 as the "waters" of their essences. It is also quite out 

 of our power in England to compete with the South 

 for the production of jasmine oil, which is almost as 

 costly as attar of roses, the "neroli" which is obtained 

 from orange flowers, or the petit grain extracted from 

 its leaves. But there is no reason why the anise, the 

 carraway, and the iris should not be more grown for 

 the purposes in licated, nor why the ros -mary and the 

 juniper should not be pressed into the service of the 

 perfumer by the hands of the English agriculturist. At 



