156 THE CHEMISTRY OF ESSENTIAL OILS
ones, and those over a hundred years of age are exceedingly rich. The
importance of a regular supply of both camphor and camphor oil is
enormous, and the utter neglect which the Chinese gatherers have
shown to the cultivation of the tree is very surprising. They have
largely succeeded in exterminating it along the seaboard of Formosa,
and are continually making fresh inroads into the inland forests, with-
out any serious attempt to replace the trees destroyed. Attempts, more
or less successful, to cultivate the camphor tree have been made in
many parts of the world, such as Ceylon, the Malay States, Further
India, East Africa, North America, and Italy, but as the world's supply
of camphor and camphor oil practically come from Japan, these at-
tempts have little interest from the essential oil point of view. Chinese
camphor and camphor oil are found in the market to a small extent,
but this trade is steadily declining.
The following details, which give in summarised form a number of
experimental results, are from a report by B. J. Eaton^1 published at
the instance of the Government of the Federated Malay States :—
The first experiments in the cultivation of the camphor tree in the
Malay States were made in 1904 at Batu-Tiga, Selangor, seed having
been obtained from Yokohama for the purpose. The plants flourished
excellently and in 1909 the first camphor was distilled. The raw
material consisted of shoots from five-year-old trees and the result of
the experiment is shown below:—
Material. Yield per cent.
Out leaves 1-17 to 1-22
Small stems 0-06 „ 0-45
Mouldy leaves 1-25 „ 1-47
Leaves and stems. 1
- 25 „ 1-58
Air-dried leaves 1*10 „ 1
16
„ mouldy leaves ....... 1-54
In each case the distillate consisted of camphor with very little oil.
These experiments were repeated upon a large scale with a larger
distilling apparatus. The raw material consisted of the parts of an en-
tire five-year-old tree.
Material. Yield per cent.
Leaves 1-00
Stems under J in. diameter 0'22
Woody stems over j in. diameter ..... 0
- 61
Boots 1-10
The distillates consisted principally of camphor; the roots .alone
yielded an oil, which possessed an odour reminiscent at the same time of
camphor and of lemons. Afterwards numerous experiments were
carried out with various distilling apparatus which had been partly
modified.
Finally, the author gives a review of similar experiments in other
countries, the results of which are shown in the table on opposite page.
The crude method of preparing camphor from the trees is as follows.
The tree is felled and the young branches and twigs are chopped up
and packed in perforated jars, and heated over a crude steam-bath.
The steam enters the jars, saturates the chips, and causes the crude
camphor to sublime and condense in earthenware pots placed over the
jars. The crude camphor is sent to the port, and a certain amount of
1
Dept. of Agriculture, Bull. No. 15, February, 1912.