January, 1909.] 



9 



Saps, and Exudations 



to retain the control of the camphor 

 trade in future years, and to meet the 

 ever-increasing demand, she must bestir 

 herself by extending the cultivation of 

 the tree, which requires forty or fifty 

 years ' growth before any satisfactory 

 return can be expected. He further said 

 that, while thus encouraging the pro- 

 duction aud manufacture of camphor, the 

 Government intended also to promote the 

 exportation of the finished article, and 

 commissioners had been sent to Europe 

 aud the United States to investigate the 

 conditions affecting the demand. About 

 the same time that this Report was 

 issued a statement also appeared from 

 the United States Consul at Tamsui, of 

 an interview with the chief of the 

 Camphor Bureau of Formosa. In this 

 it is stated that the manufacture of 

 camphor in Formosa affects only those 

 trees of fifty years old or upwards, inas- 

 much as the cutting down of trees of a 

 less age is forbidden. Recent investiga- 

 tions indicate that the supply of mature 

 trees will, at the present rate of cutting, 

 become exhausted in less than fifty 

 years. The old trees now standing are 

 confined to the mountainous eastern half 

 of the islands in regions, for the most 

 part, inhabited by savage tribes. These 

 mountains are covered with dense 

 jungles, and the work of making roads, 

 in order that the camphor forests may 

 be rendered available for profitable 

 exploitation, must involve the expendi- 

 ture of much time and labour, besides 

 which the sanitary conditions of the 

 country are such as to produce fever 

 among the labourers. A thousand coolies 

 were taken by a Japanese company 

 into the Daito prefecture a few years 

 ago for the purpose of exploiting the 

 camphor forests, and 33 per cent, of the 

 workers were completely incapacitated 

 by fever. The greater part of the 

 camphor at present produced in the 

 Island comes from the Toen prefecture. 

 Between 1900 and 1906 the Japanese 

 Government planted about three million 

 young trees, and it is intended to follow 

 this up by planting 750,000 in each 

 successive year. 



There are said to be two distinct 

 varieties of the Camphor tree grown, 

 one producing the camphor of commerce 

 and the other producing only camphor 



oil. There would appear, however, to 

 be some mistake in this, as will be seen 

 later on. 



Private firms in Formosa wishing 

 to engage in the cultivation of Camphor 

 trees are supplied with young plants 

 from the Government nursuries. Al- 

 though the Customs returns for China 

 show that 12,000 piculs of crude camphor 

 were exported from that country in 

 1906, yet the Formosa authorities fear 

 no competition from that source, and 

 the reports of camphor planting in 

 Ceylon, Florida, Texas, aud Mexico do 

 not disturb the prospects of the 

 Formosan product in the eyes of the 

 authorities. They contend that the 

 more Camphor trees planted the less 

 likelihood there will be of the successful 

 production of an artificial substitute. 



The subject is interesting from two 

 points of view, First, it must be remem- 

 bered that pharmaceutically genuine or 

 natural camphor is alone acknow- 

 ledged by the British Pharmacopoeia, 

 while synthetically-prepared camphor is 

 principally and increasingly in demand 

 for the manufacture of celluloid and 

 smokeless powder. Referring to the 

 statement that two varieties of the 

 Camphor tree are grown in Formosa, 

 one yielding camphor and the other 

 camphor oil, we may quote from a 

 recent report of Sir A. Hosie, Acting 

 Commercial Attache to H. M. Legation 

 at Pekin, where he says "Not only is 

 camphor distilled from the camphor 

 wood chips upcountry, but the oil 

 resulting from this distillation is brought 

 to Foochow in airtight old kerosene 

 tins, re-distiiled, and made to yield some 

 5C per cent, of its weight in camphor." 



The process is described as a very 

 crude one, the oil being poured into the 

 retorts, and the distilled oil, after passing 

 through the worrn, is received into 

 kerosene tins, which are placed in tanks 

 of water, where they stand for twenty- 

 four hours to cool and to deposit the 

 camphor in the bottoms of the tins. 

 "The oil is then poured off and redis- 

 tilled as many as sixteen or seventeen 

 times, until the camphor has all been 

 extracted." — Gardeuei-s Chronicle, Vol. 

 XL1V., No. 3538, October, 1908. 



2 



