August, 1908. J 



117 



Oils and Fats. 



According to reports from Ceylon, the 

 cultivation of camphor trees now extends 

 over an area of 900 acres, and if there 

 had not been a scarcity of seedlings, the 

 area under cultivation would be larger. 



The work by Nock (mentioned on page 

 25 of our last Report), on the propaga- 

 tion of camphor-trees, has now been 

 published in The Circulars and Agri- 

 cultural Journal of the Royal Botanic 

 Gardens, Ueylon, and gives exact details 

 on the various methods recommended 

 for the propagation. 



With regard to the experiments in the 

 cultivation of camphor in the South of 

 France and the French Possesions, a 

 good deal of information is available. 

 In these experiments, which were appa- 

 rently undertaken both officially and 

 privately, the question was whether the 

 trees produce in their new surroundings 

 a commercially important quantity of 

 camphor. The first trials, made in the 

 experimental garden at Algiers and else- 

 where in Algeria, had at first a totally 

 negative result. In 1895, Trabut suc- 

 ceeded in obtaining from the leaves of 

 young camphor trees sown by himself, 

 a yield of 38g. from 6-6 lb., equal to 1-27 

 per cent., and Battandier was recently 

 able to produce camphor in a yield of 

 r05 to 1*40 per cent, from leaves and 

 young branches of trees which Trabut 

 had planted in 1895. Tarbouriech had 

 for his experiments only available the 

 single tree, 15 3'ears old, of the botanical 

 garden at Montpellier, which had a very 

 strong growth, and which put forth long 

 branches year by year. But from the 

 leaves of this tree only 0,65 per cent, 

 camphor could be isolated. Trabut attri- 

 butes this unsatisfactory lesult to the 

 fact that the tree is placed in a hot house, 

 owing to which the sap in the tree has 

 ceased to flow in consequence of the 

 smaller quantity of air and light ad- 

 mitted. According to Tarbouriech, the 

 camphor-question is worthy of full 

 attention from official quarters. The 

 last-named investigator explains the 

 first unsuccessful attempts, in quoting 

 the work of Trabut and Battandier, in 

 this way that at that time a camphor- 

 less variety, C 'amphora inuncta, Hardy, 

 had been used for the studies. 



From a compilation by Cayla on the 

 same subject, we learn that Beille at 

 Bordeaux also obtained camphor from 

 the leaves and young branches of a tree 

 grown in the botanical garden of that 

 town, but here no details are given of 

 the yield. From trees grown by grafting 

 twigs of the genuine camphor-tree on 

 Camphora inuncta, the camphorless 

 species, Trabut obtained the same good 



yield as from the tree with genuine roots. 

 The fluctuations observed in the yields 

 are not due to climatic influences, but 

 are explained by differences in the indi- 

 vidual species, and possibly also in the 

 individual trees. Cayla discusses es- 

 pecially in detail the researches of 

 Crevost and Lan with regard to the 

 occurrence of several camphor-producing 

 varieties in Tonquiu. From the extra- 

 ordinary results obtained by these 

 scientists it would appear that the true 

 camphor-tree, Cinnamomum Camphora, 

 is not found among them, Lan mentions 

 trees whose leaf -stalks acquire a red 

 colour when kept, and others whose 

 stalks remain green, and he considers 

 the two as different species. This dif- 

 ference would show itself by the fact 

 that leaves and branches of the red- 

 stalked trees yield camphor, those of 

 the green-stalked trees oil. A further 

 difference, according to Lan, shows 

 itself in the odour of the fresh 

 leaves, and in their appearance after 

 drying; the green-stalked leaves, when 

 rubbed, produced a distinct odour of 

 rancid oil, and when dry had a charac- 

 teristic greasy-oily appearance, whilst 

 the red-stalked leaves had a camphor- 

 odour, and a dull appearance after dry- 

 ing. As neither blossoms nor fruit of 

 either species were available, and an 

 exact identification was therefore impos- 

 sible, Lan concluded from the nervature 

 of the two species allied to the cinnamon 

 tree, Cinnamomum Zeylanicum, Breyne, 

 of which the roots contain camphor, and 

 the leaves camphor oil, as was shown by 

 Kurz, — a view which is perhaps sup- 

 ported by the presence of the above- 

 named varieties in the midst of strongly 

 growing cinnamon-shrubs. A third cam- 

 phor-producing tree also found in Ton- 

 quin, Lan looked upon as either Cinna- 

 momum Camphora, or C. Parthenoxylon, 

 Meissn. According to Cayla it is for 

 practical purposes important, that the 

 camphor-trees, as Crevost noticed, do not 

 form continuous forests, but are only 

 found in the neighbourhood of pagodas. 

 This situation would have the effect of 

 protecting the old trees, whilst the new 

 trees further out were felled and their 

 shoots destroyed by bush-fires. In the 

 cultivation of the camphor-trees for 

 which the preliminary conditions are 

 unquestionably better than in Formosa, 

 the most important point will be to pro- 

 tect them from these bush-fires. A 

 number of colonists have already taken 

 up the utilisation of the trees, and one 

 of them has already obtained from the 

 leaves and branches of the red-stalk 

 variety a brownish oil which, then sold 

 in Hongkong, fetched about 213 francs 

 per 10C kilos. Cayla concludes that, 

 after what has become known up to the 



