— 50 — 
The export from July i^* 1901 to June 30^^ 1902 was 
2322 cases of 12 bottles each, or 17 41 5 kilos 
against 193 3 in the same period of 1 900/1 901, 
2792 „ I 899/ I 900, 
3288 „ „ „ „ „ „ 1898/1899. 
The previous low quotations could not again be reached without 
a considerable increase in the production. 
The decline of the sugar industry in the West Indian islands 
appears to lead to this, that the lands and the labour set free by 
the reduced cultivation of sugar cane are employed for other purposes; 
and from a report which has reached us from a friendly quarter it 
would seem that it is intended to take up there the cultivation of 
the A7idropogon grasses. That attempts to cultivate these grasses have 
already been made in those islands is proved by the fact, that the 
superintendent of the botanical garden in Trinidad, at a meeting in 
Barbados, produced, among other essential oils, also the oils of 
Andropogo?i Nardus var. and Andropogon Schoenanthus, which were sub- 
sequently examined more in detail at the Government laboratory in 
Antigua. The following results were obtained there 
for the first oil: k 
d^ = o,9o84, = -j- 0° i'; aldehyde-content 15,5 ^oi ' 
saponification number 23, sapon. number after acetylation 168,5, 
corresponding to a total alcohol-content of about 53 per cent; 
for the other oil: 
d^ = 0,9315, aj) = 3°; aldehyde-content 48,2 o^; 
saponification number 31,1; sapon. number after acetylation 69,6, 
corresponding to 20,2 per cent Cj^oH^gO. 
Whereas the first of the two oils, apart from the low dextrogyration, 
approximately agrees with Ceylon citronella oil (it does not dissolve 
in 10 volumes of 70 per cent alcohol, but already in the same volume 
of 80 per cent alcohol), the other oil differs in its properties in a 
very marked degree from palmarosa oil, with which, according to the 
mother plant, it should be identic. But the oil cannot be considered 
as lemongrass oil, because (even assuming that the aldehyde it con- 
tains is actually citral) the aldehyde -content is too low; it shows a 
certain amount of similarity with a lemongrass oil from the same district 
(compare Report April 1902, page 48), inasmuch as it dissolves with 
great difficulty, and only makes clear solutions with 94 per cent alcohol. 
Limette Oil. We have just received a fresh consigment 
(and that of the hand -pressed sort) of the excellent product of 
