and Magazine of the Ceylon Agricultural Society. 



281 



CAMPHOR IN THE F. M. S. 



Preliminary Notes on Preparation. 

 [In view of the Agricultural Show at Penang 

 this month, Notes on investigations carried on 

 in the preparation of Camphor from the Com- 

 mon Formosan or Japanese Camphor, tree to- 

 gether with notes on the cultivation and growth 

 of the plant in the Malay Peninsula, have been 

 published, and we extract as follows from the 

 August Straits Agricultural Bulletin ] 



THE FIRST EXPERIMENTS 



in camphor by the F.M.S. Agricultural De- 

 partment were initiated in Batu Tiga 5 years 

 ago by Mr Stanley Arden. The seeds of the 

 Batu Tiga trees were obtained from the Yoko- 

 hama Nursery Company and sown in May, 1904. 

 They were planted out in their permanent quar- 

 ters 10' x 10' in December of the same year. Tho 

 growth as a whole is very good, while the growth 

 in some cases is exceptional. The average height 

 of the trees is now about 18 feet, the tallest tree 

 being over 26 feet. A further supply of seeds 

 and young plants was received from Japan in 

 May, 1907, and planted out in the Experiment 

 Plantation, Ruala Lumpur, in September of the 

 same year. The growth of the plants in this 

 case has also been good, the trees averaging in 

 one plot 5 ft. 6 inches in height and 4 feet 6 

 inches in breadth ; this plot was cut over, brin- 

 ging all the trees to one even height of five feet 

 and leaving the sides untouched and yielded a 

 crop of clippings averaging 1,226 1b. per acre; 

 the actual yield of camphor from which 

 amounted to 0.6 per cent. 



Preparation of Camphor. 

 Method of distillation : — 



The first experiments were made on a very 

 small scale in a small copper still of 7 litres 

 ( = 12 - 3 pints) capacity and capable of holding 

 only about l£ lb. of leaves or about 4 lb. of twigs, 

 using an ordinary glass Liebig condenser to con- 

 dense the camphor and oil. 



Steam was generated in a separate boiler and 

 passed through the leaves or twigs in the still. 



Preparation of Material. 

 Experiments were made with material pre- 

 pared in the following manner: (1) the unbroken 

 leaves, (2) leaves cut up into small pieces, (3) air 

 dried leaves, (4) mouldy leaves, (5) twigs cut up 

 into small pieces about an inch long. The leaves 

 and twigs used in these experiments were cut 

 by coolies using parangs (knives) only. 



On a commercial scale some kind of chaff cut- 

 ting or other similar machine could be used for 

 the purpose, to save labour, either worked by 

 hand, by bullocks, or machine driven as circum- 

 stances necessitate. 



Preliminary Experiments. 

 11.5 kilograms = 26 lb. of prunings, consisting 

 of 64.9 per cent, leaves and 35.1 per cent, twigs, 

 were received for experiment from the Superin- 

 tendent of Experimental Plantations (Mr J W 

 Campbell)— being the part prunings from a five 

 year old tree at the Experimental Garden, Batu 

 Tiga, Selangor. As only the small apparatus 



(described above) was at tho time available for 

 the experiment, the distillation had to be ex- 

 tended over a number of days and tho results of 

 each distillation were kept separate for compari- 

 son and carried on under different conditions as 

 described above, entirely for experimental pur- 

 poses, in order to ascertain if these conditions 

 gave different results. [The results obtained are 

 then described.] 



Conclusions.— These experiments show: (1) 

 that a much larger percentage of camphor and 

 oil is obtained from the leaves than from the 

 young wood or twigs. 



(2) That air drying has no detriminal effect 

 on the yield : — if air drying be resorted to how- 

 ever, it should not be carried out in direct 

 sunlight. 



(3) That the principal product is camphor 

 with a small percentage of oil. 



(4) That a yield of at least 1 per cont of cam- 

 phor with a small percentage of oil may be ex- 

 pected from the prunings of trees of this age 

 viz : 5 years, and probably from trees younger 

 than this. 



Further Experiments on a Larger Scale. 



It was decided to erect a large still on a more 

 practical scale. A plant was constructed on our 

 design by the the Federated Engineering Co., 

 Kuala Lumpur, and although satisfactory, ex- 

 perience has shown that it can be improved in 

 many ways. [The large Still and Condenser 

 are then described.] 



The following are the dimensions of the 

 apparatus and the capacity of the still in terms 

 of fresh camphor leaves, prunings, and wood 

 (the latter cut up into small pieces) : — 



Boiler.— Length 2 feet 9 ins. ; Diameter 1 foot 9 ins. 



Still.— Length 2 feet 6 ins ; Diameter 1 foot 9 ins ; Capa- 

 city in terms of camphor leaves 30 lb ; Capacity in terms 

 of camphor wood 90 lb ; Capacity in terms of prunings 60 lb. 



Condenser.— Length 2 feet ; Diameter 9 ins ; Length of 

 copper condensing tubes 1 foot9 ins; Diameter of copper 

 condensing tubes 1 inch. 



Criticisms of apparatus : (1) The chief disad- 

 vantage of a metal (iron) condenser is the dis- 

 colouration of the camphor by iron rust. If the 

 condenser were entirely of copper there would 

 be little or no colouration. 



(2) Since practically all the camphor con- 

 denses in the condenser tubes and only the oil 

 and water pass into the receiver, a tube con- 

 denser has the disadvantage that the tubes 

 would soon get blocked. Apart form this the 

 layer of camphor on the tube would form a non- 

 conducting medium and lessen the effeciency of 

 the condenser. 



(3) It is difficult to clean out a tube con- 

 denser, and easily remove the camphor, though 

 this could easily be done by a spocial scraper 

 fitting the condenser tubes. 



(4) The chief disadvantage of the particular 

 still described is the time wasted in discharging 

 and recharging. 



The discharging could be hastened by having 

 a lateral opening above the perforated plate, and 

 made air-tight by an asbestos sheet. 



(5) In a large still the weight of the leaves or 

 wood, especially when wet, would tend toereate 



