| Show CAMPHOR Millions of Trees in FormosaGrowth and S Manufacture A correspondent of the Philadelphia L ctoer writing from Amoy JapanOctober 4 writes a very interesting article about t ho millions of camphor trees in Formosa At the present time there is enough camphor cam-phor there to supply all Christendom for a century A tree is not considered worth anything till it is fifty years old To produce pro-duce camphor the scrapings or chips are pounded in a stono or in a mor pt tar and boiled in a large iron caldron cald-ron over which is placed an earthenware bowlshaped vessel In the boiling the camphor sublimes and condenses on the inside of the big bowl which is removed re-moved from time to time the camphor scraped off and replaced The root and trunk is scraped while the yield lasts and the chipping continued till finally the tree falls No attempt is made to extract the camphor from the trunk or branches of the fallen tree The quantity of camphor produced depends upon the amount of labor employed in the business Ten iron pots and accompanying bowls make up what is called a set and are worked by four men One set will produce about six pounds a day a fair average iso is i 50 pounds a month At one time the camphor trade was monopolized mo-nopolized by the governor of Formosa and his official staff The annual output ran as high as 250 and 300 tons and netted the distinguished dis-tinguished syndicate over 100000 a year The profit can be oasily appreciated when it is known thai the poor peasant was paid 14 cents per pound for the camphor which iWis sold 11 week afterward in Hong Kong or anywhere from 24 to 35 cents Tho monopoly mo-nopoly was abolished in 1S70 at the intervention inter-vention of the ministers of all the great powers at Peking Foreign merchants td especially British and American prepared to enter the trade on a large scale The authorities tvlth characteristic shrewdness enacted forthwith a likin or internal revenue rev-enue system which completely frustrated all attempts to do business successfully Under these circumstances the trade languished lan-guished and the supply demanded by Europe Eu-rope and America was drawn from Japan and other countries |
