February i, 1890.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST- 
that a copy cannot be sent to you by this mail. 
If possible, I shall be present when it is read, 
but fear it will be impracticable for me to do this. 
Anyway, you shall have a copy of the paper and 
such information as may be obtainable respecting 
the following discussion to be expected, by the next 
mail. It is said that Mr. Shand proposes to illus- 
trate his remarks by a carefully prepared table 
showing the relative course of the tea and alcoholic 
trades for some years past, and we hear that that 
table will be remarkable as indicating how steadily 
the upward course of the former trade has followed 
the downward course of the latter one. — London Cor. 
COMMERCIAL OIL OF CINNAMON. 
Mr. Frank E. Ballard, manager to Messrs. A. Moore 
& Co., of Smyrna, sends us the following iuteresting 
notes on the commercial tests for cinnamon oil :— 
While living in Ceylon it was often my duty to 
examine and report upon various samples of the cinna- 
mon oil of commerce, and to write certificates as to 
its specific gravity, it being the custom for Colombo 
merchants to send a sample of the article to»a chem- 
ist for examination before accepting a consignment 
from the native producer, or giving an advance upon 
it pending its transmission to and sale in a European 
market. 
This special work was quite new to me, so I be- 
gan reading up the subject as far as possible, and 
at the outset found some little difficulty, by reason 
of the variations in specific gravity given by trie va- 
rious authors I consulted, no two of them being alike. 
Books failing me, I began questioning the buyers I 
met as to the means they adopted. 
A gentleman told me he tested his samples by 
allowing single drops of the oil to fall into a glass 
beaker of water, and judged by the relative rapidity 
or slowness with which they reached the bottom as 
to their freedom from adulteration, the deduction 
being, that the lighter the oil the slower it travelled, 
and vice vcrsd. Rather a risky and unsatisfactory 
operation, anyhow ! Another buyer staked his money 
on his taste, and defined a good oil as one which 
tasted very sweet in the mouth, and left no hot, pep- 
pery after-flavour. This test, I afterwards found, had 
a certain amount of value. The specific gravities given 
in the books I consulted varied between P026 and 
T035, which leaves a very wide margin of doubt and 
uncertainty when applied to such a product as cinna- 
mon oil. 
I next tried to get a guaranteed specimen of pure 
quill oil as a standard. This was unobtainable, no 
merchant being able to state from what part of the 
plant any oil he had been distilling. It would not 
have done to depend upon a native specimen, so I 
was under the necessity of distilling it myself. This 
was done, and by careful collection I got 1J oz. of 
oil from 12^ lb. of bark, all quill. 
But such an oil ! beautiful to see, delicious to smell, 
and as different from the native product as creosote 
is different from crystal carbolic acid. It was of a. 
bright pale golden colour, sweet taste, rapidly dif- 
fused, and leaving no bitterness on the tongue. Its 
sp. gr. was 1 - 019. 
Now, whence came such abnormal sp. gr. as 1-026 
and 1*035. I shall be able to show. On inquiry from 
distillers I found that they can produce, practically, 
as many grades of oil as they please at specific gra- 
vities between 1019 and 1-045. The finest and lightest 
oil is the product of quill bark alone and will not 
vary iu sp. gr. more than between 1019 and 1-021. 
A second quality is produced from chips, root bark, 
broken quill, and tne cinnamon debris of the factory 
generally. The sp. gr. of this oil will vary between 
1-025 and P032. A third oil is distilled from the 
leaves alone, and is very different in its characters 
from the other varieties. It is light brown in colour, 
and sweetish, but it leaves an acrid burning taste on 
the tongue, and its odour is rough and wheu Bmellod 
after a fine quill oil, it is decidedly unpleasant. Its 
sp. gr. varies, but, as a rule, will be from TOiO to 
1-045, 
With these data it is easy to understand the errors 
in description of specific gravities given by various 
writers on matetia medica and pharmaceutical chernis- 
tiy. They have never had a pure sample of oil for 
examination, but simply the common market variety, 
which is never — so far as I could learn from native 
distillers — preparad from quill bark alone, but is, as 
a rule, a mixture of the varieties named, in varying 
proportions. It would not pay them to send home 
a first-class oil, for the highest prices paid seldom 
pass Is. lOd. per oz., and frequently an ordinary oil 
has heen left unsold at 6d. or tid. Consequently they 
send the bark to Europe, and make their oil from 
the refuse, and hence the sp. gr. is given in the 
United States Pharmacopoeia as 1-040, and in Muter 
as 1-035 ; while MM. Salet, Girard, and Pabst, in 
the Agenda du Chimiste, give 1-033, and Hager T005 
to T030. The British Pharmacopoeia gives the coup 
de grd.ee, and tells us with the most charming naivete 
that " it sinks in water." What a lucid definition \— 
Chemist and Druggist. 
♦ 
ROOT PRUNING. 
We can do little to improve our climate — though much 
has already been done in that direction by thorough 
drainage and by deeper and better cultivation. The 
latter, in fact, may be called an extension to the utmost 
possible limits of surface drainage. And in so far as 
it perfects and completes surface drainage, it improves 
the climate ; for every drop of water that passes 
through the earth instead of being lifted off it by 
evaporation, renders the earth and surface atmosphere 
warmer and drier in consequence. 
But root prunirig deals directly with the plant, or 
free — not indirectly upon it through its environment; 
like euperior culture and its surroundings. The main 
results of root pruning are the limitation of the supplies 
of food, and the improvement of its quality, and both 
processes tend to augment and sustain fertility. It 
may be — is, in fact, difficult to explain the whys and 
the wherefores of theoperatious that lead to such de- 
sirable results ; but the facts themselves have been 
demonstrated over and over again ; and some of the 
more potent causes of them may be formulated thus : — 
Granted a limited amount of heat, light, air, elaborating 
or manufacturing forces, and an unlimited quantity 
of food or raw material, the producer becomes handi- 
capped or swamped by the excessive supplies of the 
latter. He loses, as it were, his legitimate power over 
the products produced. Experience also proves that 
excessive supplies of plant-food are mostly expended 
in wood-making. This is Nature's mode, unaided by 
art, of restoring the balance between supply and ex- 
penditure. The evils of an excess of plant-food may 
be modified if not cured by extending the area of their 
expenditure. As the plant jgrows larger, the pressure 
on over-fed vessels — congested elaborating organs — 
becomes less, and finally ceases. It may matter less to 
the plant than many suppose, whether the evils of an 
excess of food be cured through a mere extension of 
growth or augmented fertility. From the fact, tUat 
Nature left wholly to herself mostly takes the former 
course, we may infer that, on the whole, it is the best 
for the health aud longevity of the plant. Both tnese 
plans, however, tend to rectify and adjust the balance 
between supply and demand, the acquisition aud ex- 
penditure of force or food from without. Growth and 
fertility are both compensatory remedies for excessive 
supply. 
Root pruning, on the contrary, is an instrument, and, 
as many too readily assume, an unnatural remedy for 
the same disproportion between force and functions. 
But really it is not at all unnatural, for what are our 
barren, hard subsoil — our shallow, poor tilths — our 
gravelly deposits, the prevalence of loose stones, and 
our solid strata of rocks, but so many natural instru- 
ments of root pruning, and a few of Nature's many 
means of cutting off perforce excessive supplies of 
food from the roots of our fruit trees and otber plants Y 
As what is most unnatural, is the planting of these on 
. deep, rich soft tiltha filled or mulched to repletion 
