- SCIENTIFIC Nagee ‘ON ESSENTIAL Oe” 23 
: Peiisisands upon iol of bergamot trees had to be felled to dale room for 
the | ‘barrack camps to supply the place of the villages destroyed by that terrible earth- 
ene: at about the same time a new disease ofthe Citrus trees appeared, which 
j _ damaged the tenderer bergamot tree more than its more-resisting cousins, and un- 
~ fortunately caused the death of a large quantity of bergamot trees. 
= Against the aforesaid lowered power production of South Calabria, an ever-increasing 
world consumption developed abroad. — 
¥ This announces itself quite. clearly in the steady and continuous rise in the price 
of this oil during the last 12 years. | 
4 _ The result of these conditions is that moderate or bad harvests have a greater 
_ influence over the price of oil ap petermott for the time being than is the case with 
lemon oil for example. — 
In the autumn of 1914 oil of bergamot cost 13 lire — per Sicilian pound of 317 grammes. at 
The slackness in trade which happened in the later months of the year, as well as 
: _ price of bergamot oil to slowly sink to 7 lire; towards the end of April 1915 a turn 
_ took place which brought the value of the atte up to 11.50 lire during the summer. 
ae For a short time there was a reaction followed by a repeated tightening of the 
summer heat. 
Since then, from 1919 to “May 1920 the ese of bergamot oil has been mae on 
; the up grade. ie 
‘we Standing at 22 lire in Mie. 1916, the oil fell to 17 lire during ‘the H acehustiaa 
season January to March 1917, but rose again in the jonowine July to 21 lire and kept 
at this level right into December 1918. 
S iwo. lire, and it was maintained at this level until, in the late autumn of 1919, the 
local speculation made itself master of the bergamot oil and drove the prices up 
q without any just reason. 
3 In November 1919 the oil me at 28 tne. in December at 35 lire, in jatar 
_ 43 lire; February 53 lire, March 90 lire, and in April the price rose to 100 lire. 
Bergamot oil, like the other oils, suffered a fall in price, only in a lesser degree, 
somewhat and now stands at 30 lire. . 
Re bergamot harvest of 1920, see page 27 of this Report. 
Re export of bergamot oil from Italy, see page 30 of this. Report! 
eon: Oil.—The prices of this oil have rise and sunk one the course of t the 
war, i.e., right into the late autumn of 1918, generally throughout the whole period 
_ the eations were moderate and the price increase or decrease seldom attained 50%. 
Such price variations were generally of short duration, since they were caused 
_of the fresh lemons on account of the rise in price of the oil. 
Lemon oil stood at 2.25 lire per Sicilian pound of 317 grammes in Sey 1915; 
it reached its highest price of 4.75 lire in June, and fell, after aly’ entry into the 
world war, to 2.50 lire towards the end of September. 
In 1916 the price of lemon oil was maintained with difficulty, and was only 
Bocsed to 3.50 lire towards the end of the year. 
in May and stood at 70 lire; during the lest few months the price has recovered 
the good results of the new period recovery, which was just commencing, caused the a ‘i 
~ prices for in addition the tather eer harvest | tea ae had been damaged by the — 
The harvest period of the winter 1918/1919 caused the price to sink by one or | 
| almost exclusively by local speculation, with the idea of effecting a rise in the price _ 
