or nents” were carried out 
or ‘crop having been autumn corn. After the harvest the ground was lightly 
_ lied, 1 manured in the course of the winter and in the spring the mint was planted out 
after two harrowings. The weather being favourable the young plants grew without 
= watering. Harvesting took place on the 30th. and 31st: of June (2), the herb being left to 
~ dry till September on the floor of a drying shed. On a previous occasion bad results 
_ had been obtained when the mint herb had been dried at a temperature ranging from 
38 to 40° on a hop. drying kiln; the herb remained a lovely light green colour, but 
was” completely odourless. 
as 
3 Oil of Petitgrain. In an English contemporary+) two Paraguay petitgrain oils 
are mentioned which, though somewhat weak in odour. shewed normal ester percentage 
38 to 41 per cent.) but had the unusually high rotation of + 6.8°-and -+ 8° respectively. 
As no. adulteration could be detected the anomaly, in the author’s opinion, might 
on ee ‘fresh piece of land, the 
q possibly be traced to the fact that the material used for distillation contained more _ 
__ twigs than usual or else fruit of greater maturity. He considers it desirable to solve = 
the question by distilling twigs, leaves and unripe fruit separately and to determine 
g he constants of the oils thus obtained. 
Anomalies of this description have been met with before now. It was 5 pomnen 
out in 1910 in the above-mentioned journal?) as well as by ourselves’) that petitgrain 
oils are met with in commerce which differ from the normal oils in having a lower 
_ Specific gravity, stronger dextrorotation and lower ester percentage, the odour at the 
same time being unsatisfactory. At a later date*) we were able to supplement this 
information by stating that these deviations in density and rotation had been observed © ge 
repeatedly with oils of normal ester content and that in a few isolated cases only 
stronger rotation had been noticed. The highest rotation observed by us in such oils ‘e 
_ so far was +1193’. We consider it very probable that the differences referred to 
are connected with the quality of the material used for distillation, but upon enquiry 
with the producers we were informed at the time that it was due to unfavourable 
3 weather and changed conditions of the soil. 
---—s« Oil of Pine Needles. It needs no explanation why oils produced in enemy 
_ territory are difficult to obtain, or not obtainable at all, in these days. For this reason - 
some of these essential oils have been replaced by more or less successful substitutes, 
3 and there is nothing to be said against this practice, provided always that the sub- 
stitute is sold as such. c 
3 It is, however, quite a different thing if it is attempted to “palm off?’ such sub- 
- stitutes as genuine oils as was the case with two offers of Siberian pine needle oil 
_ submitted to us in the course of the last few months. One of these oils (I) had been 
- pried by a small Leipzig firm, the other (II) by a Wiesbaden firm. In both instances 
_ these artificial products had been explicitely called genuine Siberian pine needle oils 
. _and the price asked had been adjusted accordingly. The odour alone would have 
sufficed to betray the products as imitations of a poor quality, and the constants bore 
this out, as will be seen from the following figures: — 
z 1) Perfum. Record 7 (1916), 220. — 2%) Perfum. Record 1 (1910), 157. — %) Report October 1910, 107. — 
_ 4) Gildemeister und Hoffmann, Die atherischen Ole, 274-ed., vol.-Il], p. 109. 
~— Ld J a — 
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