758 



to unsuitable manipulation and also because "carbolineum" is a general 

 term ; the different kinds have different compositions and effects according 

 to the factories producing them. 



In general, all that has been said of tar holds good for the use of car- 

 bolineum as a coating substance. If plants are brought into rooms where 

 the carbolineum coating has not dried sufficiently, they suffer and, at times, 

 show symptoms resembling those produced by asphalt fumes. Thus, for 

 example, Zorn in Hofheim (Taunus) reports^ that the leaves of strawberry 

 plants set out in hot beds of which only the outer side had been painted with 

 carbolineum, became a peculiar brown, very shiny and curled. Under the 

 subject of coating the tips of grapevine stakes, a "Chronique agricole"- calls 

 attention to the fact that even when such stakes have been painted in the 

 winter and the young shoots of the grapevine have already overgrown the 

 painted part in spring, unpleasant phenomena can still occur. Some berries 

 on the bunches which touched the saturated spots were found with blackish 

 lirown spots and had a slightly tarry taste. Also the saturated parts of the 

 stake were found less resistant to fungi than those treated with copper 

 vitriol. It was noticed in a peach trellis which was painted in the autumn 

 and exposed to the weather for the whole winter that, nevertheless, in the 

 spring after every rain the youngest tips of the shoots looked as if they had 

 been burned. Such occurrences are by no means uncommon. It is the 

 vaporizing phenol and similar bodies which cause the injury. 



Since 1899 carbolineum has been used extensively as a remedy applied 

 directly to fruit trees^. As to the results, we find some unusually laudatory 

 opinions, some very harsh ones. The reason for this lies, on the one hand, 

 in the difference in carrying out the experiments ; on the other, in the vary- 

 ing composition of the substance which is a mixture procured in the produc- 

 tion of tar from hard coal and charcoal. If the tar which is produced in 

 the manufacture of gas from hard coal together with the illuminating 

 gas, coke and ammonia water, is reheated in a distilling apparatus up to a 

 temperature of 150 degrees C, so-called light oil is obtained; between 150 

 degrees and 210 degrees C. middle oil ; between 210 degrees and 270 degrees 

 C. heavy oil, and between 270 degrees and 450 degrees C. anthracene-. 



The pitch remains in the oven. Wood tar behaves in much the same 

 way. In preparing carbolineum the oils above named are used since they 

 are mixed in definite percentages and decomposed with kolophonium, 

 asphalt, boiled linseed oil, etc. Aderhold* states that, at the present time, 

 possibly 80 carbolineum factories furnish the trade with 200 to 300 varieties. 

 The distillation experiments made by Scherpe in the Biological Institution 

 of Agriculture and Forestry with 25 varieties proved that often the (espe- 

 cially injurious) light and middle oils were absent and the heavy and 



1 Praktischer Ratg-eber im Obst- and Gartcnbau 1905, No. 51. 



2 Chroniqiic agricole du canton de Vaud 1S92, No. 10. 



3 Mende, O., Zur Ob.stbaumpfleg-e. Gartenflora, 1906. No. 1. 



4 Aderhold, R., Karbolineum als Baumschutzmittel. Deutsche Obstbauzeitung 

 (Ulmer- Stuttgart) 1906, Part 22. 



