7!) 



claims of the inventor are borne out by practical trials on an indus- 

 trial scale, it is probable that a further reduction in price. nia\ be 

 expected, owing to the great difference in cost of the two raw pro- 

 ducts eugeno] and sugar. 



There is no trustworthy information as to the extent to which 

 artificial vanillin is manufactured and used at the present time, but 

 to judge from the number of firms engaged in its production the 

 amount must be considerable. 



As regards the effect of the manufacture and sale of '"artificial 



vanillin" upon the demand for vanilla., it is remarkable that, this has 

 up to the present been comparatively slight. When it is considered 

 that vanilla is employed principally as a flavouring agent, and that its 

 value in this respect depends upon the amount of vanillin it contains, 

 it is curious that so recently as November last good qualities of 

 vanilla should be saleable at 17/- to 19/6 per lb., whilst the equiva- 

 lent amount of artificial vanillin for flavouring purposes, could be 

 obtained for about one-thirtieth of this cost. It is probable that, this 

 preference for vanilla over artificial vanillin is due partly to con- 

 servatism on the part of the consumers, and partly also to a some- 

 what widespread beliet that vanillin does not wholly represent the 

 flavour of vanilla, which it is alleged is partly due to minute 

 quantities of other aromatic substances present in the plant. Some 

 evidence in favour of this view is furnished by the statements made 

 at various times by chemists who have examined particular varieties 

 of vanilla, and have isolated in addition to vanillin small quantites 

 of heliotropin, benzoic acid, etc. These substances are however both 

 cheap and readily obtainable, and if necessity arose it would be a 

 very easy matter to mix them in a proper proportion with vanillin, in 

 order to modify the. flavour of the latter in the required direction. 



The foregoing statement of the present condition of vanillin 

 manufacture indicates clearly the possibility in the near future of the 

 replacement of vanilla as a flavouring agent by vanillin. 



It is difficult, to obtain reliable statistics of the production of 

 vanilla since the cultivation of this product is so widley distributed 

 in tropical countries, and the imports of* it into the principal con- 

 suming countries are comparatively of so little value that they are 

 rarely separately given. The United States Trade Returns for 1902, 

 however, give a table of the imports of vanilla into that country for 

 the decennial period ending in 1902. of which an abstract is given 

 below. 



Imports of Vanilla into the United States of America. 



