MOSSES. 653 



3. Preparations of Scotch Pine Needles. 



In many districts, especially in Silesia, green needles of 

 freshly-felled Scotch pine are used for preparing a woolly material 

 used instead of sheep's-wool, in stuffing matrasses, quilts, &c., 

 and commercially known as wood-wool. 



Green needles are boiled in water or a weak alkaline lye, 

 or allowed to ferment and then macerated, and their fibres 

 separated by repeated washings until a felt-like mass remains, 

 retaining the fibres as far as possible unshortened. This is 

 repeatedly saturated with water, macerated and washed until it 

 has become very fine, and is then dried. The brownish or 

 greenish wood-wool is then bleached, and becomes a more or less 

 white and bright felt, and is ready for sale. 



A hundredweight of the finest wood-wool* is worth 50s., 

 inferior kinds selling for 12-9. a cwt. Boiling Scotch pine 

 needles yields a product termed oil of pine needles. A perfume 

 is also obtained from Scotch pine needles termed " essence of 

 forest air or of silver-fir " (Waldliift- odcr Tannengeist). 



4. Vanillin. 



Hartig, about 10 years ago, discovered a substance in the 

 cambium of conifers belonging to the group of glucosides, and 

 named by him coniferin. This substance has been further split 

 up into fruit-sugar, and a second organic substance, which, in 

 colour, scent, taste, and crystalline form resembles vanilla, and 

 is named vanillin. 



Vanillin is now being prepared on a large scale in Thiiringia, 

 and is largely used in confectionery. The trees are felled in 

 May and June ; the cambium-zone is shaved off, and the sap 

 collected in vats and barrels. 



5. Mosses, 



Polytrichum commune, a moss often growing a foot high in 

 wet places, is used for making brushes which are fashionable in 

 France, the material chiefly coming from Germany. The moss 



* Yide Dankelmaun's Zeitschrift, viii. 425. 



