lS2 KFW SOUTH WALES. 



Take, for instance, tlie indigenous gum arabic of tlie western country. 

 It remains on tlie trees until washed off by tlie rain, and tlie vast 

 majority of our people have no idea that it is of any commercial value. 

 If they did they could collect it at odd times, or the children of a 

 family could collect it more systematically, and it could accumulate 

 until sufficient had been obtained to trade to the local stoi'ekeeper, through 

 whose intermediary it would find its way to the wholesale house in 

 Sydney in the ordinary course of business. People in England and 

 other parts of Europe have no idea of the bartering and miscellaneous 

 trading relations which, from the very nature of things, take place 

 between the country storekeeper and his isolated customers. The 

 storekeeper is usually an educated or, at all events, a shrewd business 

 man, with an intimate knowledge of his district, and, having obtained 

 information (through advertisement or otherwise), that a certain 

 product is in demand, we may readily imagine him sa3'ing to one of 

 his selector-customers : " You see this article, Mr. X. ; I have seen 

 plenty of it on the trees at Dingdong Creek ; I will give you so much 

 a pound for all you can bring me." Business is often done in this 

 way ; the product is often not in the market until the demand for it 

 has been communicated to the country districts. 



I propose to deal with a few of our vegetable jDroducts which may be 

 obtained in quantity, — some of them in the greatest abundance, and 

 trust that some of the suggestions I make, and the advice I give, may 

 either enable my readers to make money, or prevent them wasting it. 



Eucahjijtas Oil. 



A good many people have the idea that Eucalyptus Oil is an article 

 of approximately uniform composition, like water, but such an idea is 

 a very erroneous one. 



A Eucalyptus oil varies in composition primarily on account of the 

 species of Eucalyptus (gum, tallow- wood, ironbark, peppermint, &c.), 

 whose leaves have been distilled. To a less degree it depends upon 

 the season of the year (whether young or mature foliage has been 

 distilled), the locality whence the trees were obtained, and other cir- 

 cumstances. 



The two principal constituents of Eucalyptus oils are cineol 

 (eucalyptol), a colourless and transparent liquid, of specific gravity '93, 

 and boiling point 170^-1 77^0., and phellandrene, likewise a colourless 

 and transparent liquid, boiling at 170^, a hydrocarbon, while cineol is 

 an oxygenated product. Some oils contain both these substances in 

 varying proportions; others contain one or other body almost or entirely 

 to the exclusion of the other. 



At the present time European buyers mainly buy oils containing 

 cineol, rejecting those which contain a large percentage of phellan- 

 drene. We are in the position that some of our Eucalypts which 

 yield oils most abundantly yield phellandrene oils ; at the same time 

 we do not possess information with any degree of fullness concerning 

 the oils produced by 10 per cent, of our Eucalypts. New South 

 Wales has the greatest number of species of Eucalypts of any colony 

 of Australia (Queensland coming second, and Western Australia 

 third in this respect), and it seems highly improbable to suppose that 



