Commercial and scientific notes on essential oils. 11 



at 23937 £. The world's demand for both the buchu leaves and oil is rapidly increasing, 

 and the future prospects of buchu as a field crop are good, so that increased interest 

 is being taken in the cultivation of the plant. 



Cade Oil. — There are two methods 1 ) of preparing cade oil; viz., the u destillatio 

 per descensum" for small amounts and the ''combustion en milieu confine'" for large 

 quantities. As A. juillet 2 ) says, Planchon described in 1911 a new apparatus, which 

 is more easily worked and is said to give better yields than the old furnaces. Planchon 

 avails himself of the "destillatio per descensum", which he has improved somewhat and 

 carries out on a larger scale. A jug-like container of a capacity of 1 cbm., being 

 1 .70 m. high and having a diameter of 0.5 m. in the centre, is used for the dry distil- 

 lation of the wood. This furnace, the walls of which are made of bricks and are about 

 15 cm. thick, stands on an inclined stone plate, has a small opening on top (diameter 

 20 to 25 cm.?) and another at the bottom, which is superficially closed during the 

 distillation with a flat stone. A strong hemispherical brick-work, which has several 

 apertures at the bottom, surrounds the furnace in such a way that the distance between 

 the two walls (45 cm. at the bottom, decreases gradually higher up, but the opening 

 on top is left free. Through the latter the furnace is filled with pieces of wood of 

 Juttiperus Oxycedrus, 6 to 25 cm. long. Then the opening is shut by means of a flat 

 stone and earth and a fire is made in the space between the two walls and kept up 

 for twelve hours. After this time, the walls are so hot that the distillation continues 

 for another 6 to 8 hours. The distillation products, flowing out of the lower opening, 

 are collected in a large vessel and treated in the well-known way 3 ). 



With this furnace, used in the departments of Gard and Herault (Sommieres), about 

 4 to 6 kilos of cade oil can be obtained in one distillation from 250 kilos of wood. 

 This yield seems susceptible of an increase. 



The author remarks that there would now be again more demand for genuine cade 

 oil, as there was a method of distinguishing between the pure product and faked stuff 4 ). 

 The cheap adulterated products form Norway and Asia Minor have no therapeutic value 

 at all, whereas the genuine article is an excellent remedy against skin diseases, 

 especially for animals. 



Mr. B. Menache 5 ), of Barcelona, estimates that 80 tons of pure cade oil are produced 

 yearly in Spain, 30 tons of which are consumed locally, and the balance of about 

 50 tons are available for export. The cade tree, Juniperus Oxycedrus, L, grows in 

 abundance only in the hilly and rocky districts, this is to say far away from railways 

 and even carriage-roads. To give an idea of the distance between "civilization" and 

 the cade growing country, Mr. Menache mentions that it takes a two hours' carriage 

 journey, followed by a six hours' ride on horseback, to go from the railway station 

 to his nearest stills, fitted up in 1920 according to the French system 6 ), but with 

 iron stills. 



Although the best oH is obtained from the roots alone, generally roots and stems 

 are distilled together. Such genuine oils, obtained by Mr. Menache in various places, 

 had the following properties: — d uo 0.955 to 0.990, completely soluble in ether, soluble 

 with slight opalescence in 20 vols, of 90 per cent, alcohol, colour like burnt sugar. 



J ) Comp. Report November 1908, 24. — 2 ) Parfum. moderne 13 (1920), 165. — 8 ) Comp. Report November 

 190>S, 25. — *) It is to be regretted that the author does not give any details. We would refer to Huerre's 

 investigations, which might perhaps be useful for the test of cade oil {Report 1919, 9). — B ) Perfum. Record 

 12 (1921), 149. — «) Berl. Berichta 47 (1914), 2258. 



