Edible Products. 



432 



[November, 1908. 



by the syndicates of manufacturers and 

 speculators in citrate of lime, who have 

 large stocks that have heavily depreci- 

 ated in value. The Act creates a body 

 called the "Camera Agrumaria," or 

 Chamber for the Citrus-industry, which 

 will practically have a monopoly. The 

 chamber has to sell the goods deposited 

 by the producers for their account 

 against a commission of 2 per cent, and 

 is exempt from the tax, whereas the 

 goods which are sold outside the chamber 

 are to pay the tax. At the present time 

 only citrate of lime and concentrated 

 lemon-juice are required to pay the 

 duty, which is variable and may reach 

 a maximum of about 2~> per cent, of the 

 value, but the duty may be extended by 

 royal decree to other citrus products, 

 including lemon oil. Much doubt pic- 

 vails in Messina as to whether tin- 

 Chamber will be able to work success- 

 fully ; indeed, some believe that the 

 scheme will be unsatisfactory to every- 

 body, especially to owners ot lemon- 

 orchards, who believe it will be the 

 means of advancing or keeping up the 

 price of lemons. But there are views to 

 the contrary. No artificial means is 

 likely to improve the lemon-industry, 

 which is at present suffering from over- 

 production. The chief interest of the 

 new law to makers, dealers, and con- 

 sumers of citric acid is that the duty on 

 citrate and juice is equal to 120 lire per 

 pipe of juice, or, say, £5 per pipe or 3d. 

 per lb. on citric acid. Payment of the 

 tax will eventually fall on the consumer, 

 for the narrow margin ot profit on 

 which citric-acid makers work pre- 

 cludes the possibility of their bearing it. 

 The duty will come into force in Septem- 

 ber. Makers complain of the instability 

 of the market price of citrate of lime 

 and the uncertain and frequent fluctu- 

 ations, whereby they are xinable to 

 ascertain with any degree of accuracy 

 the prices and extent of their contract 

 business. English makers have been 

 compelled to restrict their business on 

 this account, and with the new duty in 

 sight the future course of citric acid is 

 quite uncertain. It has been stated that 

 the Italian Government intend to in- 

 terest themselves in the manufacture of 

 citric acid, and with that object a sum 

 equivalent to £8,000 is at the disposal of 

 the Italian Minister of Agriculture for 

 the erection of a factory. There appears 

 to be uncalled-for animosity in Sicily 

 against all makers of citric acid, and it 

 is even alleged that they are respon- 

 sible for the present crisis in the citrus- 

 industry. Probably that is the reason 

 they wish to undertake the manufacture 

 of citric acid themselves. — Chemist and 

 Druggist, Vol. LXXII., No. 1487, July, 

 1908. 



SUMATRA TOBACCO: 



History op its Growth and 

 Development. 



Pioneer Work in the Seventies. 



( Written for the Straits Times) 



By E. Mathieu. 



It was in 1864 that Mr. Niewenhuis, a 

 Java planter, raised the first crop of 

 Sumatra tobacco, and in 1865 that 150 

 bales of that crop reached Europe. Its 

 qualities were recognised at once, and 

 the price paid for it averaged 1 florin 49 

 per half-kilo. 



Other pioneers soon followed in the 

 footsteps of Mr. Niewenhuis- Of this 

 period, the usual tale is recorded of 

 misery, sickness and death, which is the 

 inevitable prelude of the opening up of 

 a new tropical country to cultivation ; 

 and, when we see the rich plains of Deli 

 cf the present day , it is hard to realise 

 that this smiling land, not more than 

 forty years ago, was an almost impene- 

 trable block of jungle and forbidding 

 swamps, a wild land haunted by wild 

 beasts. 



But, early in the seventies, important 

 companies, such as the Deli Maatschap- 

 pij, with huge capital, and a host of pri- 

 vate planters stepped in, aud set them- 

 selves in earnest to the work of felling 

 the forests, of draining the swamps and 

 laying down the crops; roads were made 

 connecting the estates with the little 

 port of Labcean. A new port was estab- 

 lished at Belawan, and, in 1884, a well- 

 appointed railway was opened, quicken- 

 ing the life of the country; so that, in 

 less than twenty years, this land, where 

 "the hand of man had never set foot" 

 as the humorist puts it, had blossomed 

 out into a chess-board of highly-culti- 

 vated domains with rich crops of the 

 finest tobacco ever grown. 



Record op Progress.— Excepting the 

 Federated Malay States, there is, per- 

 haps, not one Colony which can show 

 such a btilliant record of progress as 

 that made by that small strip of country 

 comprising the Sultanates of Deli, Lang- 

 kat aud Serdang. This progress is not 

 the lesult of a bloody war, such as marks 

 the birth of most Colonies; it is a tale of 

 conquest of wild nature by the sheer 

 determination of the planters them- 

 selves, absolutely unaided by Govern 

 ment. A generous soil and a propitious 

 climate were on their side, it is true ; buc 

 it wanted some thi i. n more than that to 

 bring about the signal success achieved 

 by Sumatra tobacco throughout the 

 world at large. It wanted the uu- 



