QUEER HARVEST

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 95, 24 August 1942, Page 4

QUEER HARVEST

EUCALYPTUS MALLEE

A queer sort of harvest is going on in Victoria at the moment., It emploj's no complicated machinery in the gathering, and the energy spent on it is calculated* in manpower hours onh T . The implement employed is a crescent-shaped cutter something like a long-handled sickle with a razor-sharp edge, and the raw materials cut are the shoots of the blue malice, a type of eucalypt with a thickened root stock from I which rise a series of slender stems. This is the eucalyptus harvest, which is confined to practically one small area of the State. All sorts of eucalyptus will yield eucalyptus oil in varying quantities, and some are strangely devoid of" it, but the blue malice is the daddy of them all, and it is to be blue malice tlic

the eucalyptus oil kings turn their attention. It is rich in eucalyptol, the oil of eucalyptus. The oil man cultivates his eucalyptus crop, although not in the same way as other farmers. Blue mallee is a smallish plant by conv parison with other mallee, which outgrows and overshadows it. The oil. farmer leases his mallee country from the Forests Department or from a private owner, oi\ liebbursj r s it. up himself. Then he puts a big tractor hauling a heavy roller over it to break off the stems. When the time comes for a burn, the li res tick goes in and the rolled malice is burned up. Later the old stumps-begin to shoot, and the blue mallee gets an equal chance with the rest. After about a year the "cultivated" patch is cut and the leaf so gained goes to the distillery. Thereafter the area is cut regularly. The cut leaf is taken to the' distillery and dumped into vats sunk into the ground and built of brick or made from the outer casing of old boilers. "When the vat is full the top of it is put< o» and sealed with mud. Steam at about 251b pressure is injected into the bottom of the and comes out of a pipe in the top charged with eucalyptol vapour.

In the subsequent process of condensation the eucalyptol floats on top of. the water and. is drawn off by a tap.