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In your Report of April 1896 you mention the average rotatory 

 power of Sicilian lemon oils as follows: 



Messina and vicinity, Nizza -{- 59 to 6i° 



Aci-Reale, St. Teresa, St. Stefano, St. Lucia, 



Scaletta, Patti, St. Agata -(- 61 to 63 ° 



Catania, Giarre, Giardini, Aci-Reale, Leontini -|~ 63 to 64 



Barcellona, Siracusa -j- 64 to 67 



The lemon oils of this year's manufacture have a rotatory power 

 which is fully two, and even three degrees lower, and they had this 

 right from the commencement of the season. The oils of later manu- 

 facturing months will in all probability show quite abnormal rotatory 

 powers, of 55 to at most 6o°. This occurrence is all the more 

 unpleasant for the trade of this town, as the new U. S. Pharmacopoeia 

 specifies for lemon oil a lowest rotatory power of -J- 6o° at 25 C, 

 a requirement which up to the present could only be met with the 

 greatest difficulty, but which in the further course of the season it 

 will probably not be possible to fulfil. 



With regard to the solubility of this year's lemon oil, quite ex- 

 traordinary conditions have also shown themselves; whilst all oils of 

 whatever origin showed right from the first a strikingly high citral- 

 content, although they had been pressed from quite green and not 

 fully developed lemons, the same oils showed an inferior solubility, 

 and on distillation also did not give the usual results. 



With the increasing ripeness of the fruit, this abnormal behaviour 

 has gradually disappeared, but it has caused much unpleasantness to 

 the local export firms. 



Now with regard to the prospects of the new harvest, the devel- 

 opment of the trees has been retarded so much by the severe winter, 

 that not even conjectures can be made. Yet it should not be lost 

 sight of, that according to experience, a severe and prolonged winter 

 with abundant rainfall and much snow (and this has been particularly 

 plentiful this winter), usually promises a good crop. 



But it would be wrong to expect from the approaching new harv- 

 est already in the summer any influence on the position of the prices 

 of this year's oils. 



Whilst in former years not unimportant stocks of old material of 

 all oils were carried from one producing year into the other, it appears 

 that the world's consumption has increased so much during the last 

 2 years that it completely uses up the production. This, clearly, is 

 a further ground for the higher values at which during the last two 

 years all kinds of citrus oils have kept themselves, and it is not impos- 

 sible that a continued increase in the consumption of these oils may 

 bring the prices to an even higher level, and keep them there. 



