500 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Juve, 1900. 
The & s. d. of the business seems to be all right, too. A single hectare 
(about 24 acres) produces as much as 24,000 florins, or £2,000 worth of bulbs 
perannum. It goes without saying that good bulb land fetches exorbitant 
rices, reaching sometimes up to £1,000 per acre. The industry contributes 
argely to the general prosperity of the country. It is carried on by over 
1,000 floriculturists, who employ over 3,000 hands. The export of bulbs from 
Holland is said to reach 6,000,000 of francs annually. 
No doubt in years to come, when civilisation is more advanced, when there 
will be more leisure than is usually available to the pioneer in a new land, an 
ennobling taste for flowers will also develop in our midst, and fortunes will be 
made in that branch of farming. 
In the meantime, let everyone blessed with the possession of a home make 
it homely and attractive by surrounding it with a few of the less exacting 
flowers. Our opportunities in that direction are perhaps unique in the world. 
Let us then rise up and be equal to them. A few small beds of flowers round 
the family home are a constant source of pleasure, enjoyment, instruction, 
recreation, and in years to come, when we are wandering through the world, of | 
the most pleasant recollections connected with our childhood. 
SALICYLIC ACID—A WARNING. 
Tur California Fruitgrower says:—The use of salicylic acid or other similar 
chemical as a preservative of food or food products is indefensible. Whilst 
granting that, in many instances, the dangers arising from this cause have been 
greatly exaggerated, and that for the most part the chemicals used in the 
adulteration have little harmful effect, yet at the same time this line of 
reasoning does not in any way justify the practice. ‘“ No sane person,” says 
that authority, the Medical Record, “ will be found to assert that the so-called 
preservatives are beneficial to health; on the contrary, it is certain that they 
are all harmful in a greater or less degree.” The Fruitgrower publishes 
paragraph from a private letter recently received by a San Francisco house 
extensively engaged in the export trade :— 
We think it advisable to inform you that the (French) Customs officers have just 
received instructions to have analysed all dried fruit coming from America before 
allowing it to pass for consumption. It seems that the Ministerial office has receive 
news to the otk 
which, it appears, is prejudicial to health. A few years back certain kinds of beer which 
contained this acid were strictly prohibited. In order therefore to transact business 
in future in France, it will be necessary for you to guarantee that apricots, prunes, oF 
other fruit are entirely free from this acid, for buyers would not care to deal except 
with firms giving this guarantee. 
Salicylic acid is an ortho-hydroxy-benzoie acid—this alone ought to con- 
demn its use—and, instead of being a preservative, it is, and it is used as, an 
antiseptic and anti-putrefactive agent. This, in the opinion of some people, — 
may be one and the same thing, but there is not only a distinction but a difference. » 
It arrests fermentation, and so the thoughtless or the reckless call it a “pre- 
servative.” If it were indeed a preservative and only that, there would be no 
complaint as to its use, but being an arrester of fermentation it hinders 
digestion, and physical troubles must follow in its wake as surely as night follows 
day. As stated, its use is indefensible, and the French Government know it, 
and proposes to do its part in abolishing it; and California fruit curers oF 
handlers who make use of this anti-putrefactive agent, if such there be, may _ 
take warning from this article. 
ect that, in the repens of certain fruit, salicylic acid is employed, — 
ot <LI 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
