Camphor Production 
Dr. W. O. 
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : 
( I would like to preface my remarks 
with a story I heard the other day con¬ 
cerning a civil engineer. One comment 
that was made of the man in question was 
that it was the opinion that he was about 
as good a man as they could find to dis¬ 
locate a line. 
In my remarks, I would like, not only 
to dislocate' some impressions you have, 
but break them entirely in two. 
A great many people believe that the 
taking up of the production of cam¬ 
phor in this country is being done for ul¬ 
terior motives; that is not the case. If 
you are interested in growing camphor 
for commercial purposes, the people in- 
I terested in it would be only too glad to 
give you any information or assistance 
possible. The field is ample and the mar¬ 
ket is large. 
The greatest use to which commercial 
camphor is put at the present time, is not 
as a great many people believe in 
the manufacture of smokeless gunpow¬ 
der. Camphor probably never will be 
used in the manufacture of any explo¬ 
sive. In reality, it is exactly the opposite. 
It is highly inflammable but very slow 
burning and exactly the opposite of what 
is wanted in an explosive. 
. The greatest single use to which it is 
put at present, is the manufacture of cel- 
Richtmann 
luloid and like products. I make that dis¬ 
tinction because celluloid is a trademark 
now. There are many products really 
exactly similar to celluloid, but they go 
under other names, celluloid being a 
trademark. 
The method we have followed since we 
have been in the State, is the propaga¬ 
tion of the plant from the seed, keeping 
the tree in our nurseries for two years, 
and transplanting them during the winter 
season. In the summer we cannot trans¬ 
plant successfully. 
The trees are cultivated under ordinary 
conditions, keeping the ground free from 
foreign growth until June or July, when 
the native grasses are allowed to come in. 
After about three or four years after 
transplanting, the trees are large enough 
to yield trimmings. We trim our trees to 
form hedges, and we trim the hedges 
“A” shaped. We hope ultimately to 
have our trees form solid hedges. The 
trees should be planted, the hedges about 
fifteen feet apart, and kept trimmed back 
to about eight feet high. We trim them 
with a modified cutting machine. 
These trimmings are then collected and 
brought into the large building in the cen¬ 
ter of the plantation, put through an en¬ 
silage machine to reduce the bulk and 
blown to the top of the retort. The tanks 
are then sealed and steam passed through 
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