- 36 - 
bergamot and the orange, whose yield of oil was only small, the lemon 
also showed a lower oil-content, as compared with other years. 
If, in spite of this, the prices of lemon oil have up to now remained 
comparatively low, the reason of this must be found in the fact that 
buyers abroad, who were abundantly supplied with the previous year's 
product, have sent in new orders only on a small scale, and this has 
rendered the accumulation of a certain stock of new oil possible. 
The following statistics of the export will supply the proof of this: 
The stock held at Messina in December made it possible for the 
exporters to fulfil their obligations also in January and February, 
without having to fall back on the daily supplies of lemon oil. 
The exports of last month, however, have almost exhausted the 
available stocks, and the export-trade can from now only rely on the 
quantities offered from day to day. 
But, as experience shows that at Messina a considerable shortage 
for forward deliveries at late dates is the rule, and as moreover the 
consumption has not yet covered its requirements for the next nine 
months, whilst on the other hand the manufacturing season will come 
to an end at an early date on account of lack of fruit, and the stocks held 
by manufacturers and speculators probably amount to no more than 
one fourth of the previous year's stocks, there can be little doubt that an 
improvement in the prices within a not very distant time may be expected. 
Of what importance such improvement may be, cannot at this 
moment be said with any certainty; it depends upon the extent to 
which buyers abroad have to rely on the market here until the time 
of the next harvest, and also upon the expectations for the season 
1903/4 which will be raised by the development of the new blossoms. 
The following compounds have been found up to the present in 
lemon oil, excepting bodies which are not volatilisable by steam, viz., 
pinene, camphene, phellandrene, limonene, methyl heptenone, octyl 
and nonyl aldehydes, citronellal, terpineol, citral, linalyl and geranyl 
acetates and a sesquiterpene. On removing by distillation in vacuo 
the hydrocarbons of a low boiling point, i. e. pinene, camphene, 
phellandrene and limonene, with which pass over also methyl heptenone 
and partially the fatty aldehydes and the citral, and on separating 
then by steam-distillation the volatile from the non - volatilisable con- 
stituents, a concentrated lemon oil is obtained, showing a Isevorotation, 
Export Season: 
1902/1903 
December 1901 96985 kilos 
January 1902 132509 
February 1902 74056 „ 
December 1902 73440 kilos 
January 1903 95 975 
February 1903 97846 „ 
