C. Pahudiana, and Mr. Howard's examination coincides with the analysis of Dr. de Vry in pronouncing it an inferior sort. In 1861, however, he obtained 3 per cent. of alkaloids from the bark of the roots of a C. Pahudiana plant eight years old, and 1 per cent. from the trunk-bark. From a tree aged two years and three months he only got 0·09 per cent. from the trunk-bark, and 1.9 per cent. from the root-bark, of which he states the greater part to be quinine; while in the trunkbark there was not a trace of that alkaloid. This result leads Dr. de Vry to conjecture that the quinine, once formed in the roots, is employed in the growth of the plant, and that, when it attains its full growth, the trunk-bark will also be rich in quinine. If this should not be the case, he hopes that the roots of the young plants may be used profitably for the manufacture of quinine. It is to be feared that the quinine in the trunk-bark will not increase with age, for, while in the younger tree there was 1.9 per cent. of alkaloids in the roots, chiefly quinine, and 0·09 in the trunk-bark, in the older one there was 3 per cent. in the roots, of which 1.8 was quinine, and 1 per cent. in the trunk-bark, in which there was only the minutest trace of quinine. Thus, while the quantity of quinine decreased or remained stationary in the roots, the trunk-bark was still destitute of that precious alkaloid.

It is possible that Dr. de Vry, in his earnest desire to discover quinine in a species upon which so much labour and anxiety, and such vast sums of money, had been expended, may have been deceived by appearances. Both from the form of the capsules, the absence of quinine in the upper bark, and the locality whence it was procured, there is every reason to fear that the C. Pahudiana is a worthless kind; and the bark of this species, which has been sent to the Exhibition of 1862, is so evidently valueless that no dealer would buy it. In all valuable species there is a good percentage of alkaloids in

the upper bark, and a very much smaller proportion, which, too, is amorphous and of little commercial value, in the bark of the roots. This law of nature, the existence of which is proved by all experience, would have to be reversed in order to enable the Dutch to extract large supplies of quinine from the roots of a species, such as C. Pahudiana, which contains none in the upper bark.

It is much to be regretted that the scientific men in Java, instead of exerting all their skill and talent in the work of cultivating C. Calisaya and C. lancifolia, of the value of which there is no doubt, should have filled the forests of Java with a kind which from the first was known to be of very doubtful value, was unknown in commerce, and the cultivation of which will, it is to be feared, only end in loss and disappointment.

The valuable species were found to be much more tender, and more sensitive to external unfavourable influences, than the C. Pahudiana; the latter was therefore propagated rapidly, and unwisely allowed to outstrip the other kinds in the race, and the consequence has been that it has gained an immense preponderance. Thus, so far as valuable species

of chinchona-plants are concerned, the Dutch experiment in Java has been attended by a very small measure of success. After three years the Dutch gardeners only had forty plants of

9 Howard. No. 7 (note).

Report of Mr. Fraser.

valuable species in Java, and after six years they had only increased their stock to seven thousand plants. It will presently be seen that far greater results were attained in India within eighteen months of the first introduction of the chinchona-plants.

Yet, so great are the difficulties of this most important undertaking, that, in spite of the comparative failure in Java, the highest praise and admiration are due both to M. Hasskarl and to his successors. They have devoted great ability, no ordinary amount of scientific knowledge, and untiring perseverance to this good work; and, now that they have received plants of other really valuable species from India, there is a prospect that the chinchona cultivation in Java may eventually attain such a measure of success as will entitle Dr. Junghuhn and Dr. de Vry to the gratitude of their countrymen.2

2 Dr. Junghuhn has published two very interesting reports on the cultivation of the chinchona-plants in Java, in the Bonplandia, a German botanical journal: the first in Nos. 4 and 5 of 1858, and the second in the numbers

for July and August, 1860. I have caused these reports to be translated and circulated for the information of those who are intrusted with, or interested in, the chinchona cultivation in India or Ceylon.

CHAPTER IV.

INTRODUCTION OF CHINCHONA-PLANTS INTO INDIA.

PRELIMINARY ARRANGEMENTS.

THE distribution of valuable products of the vegetable kingdom amongst the nations of the earth-their introduction from countries where they are indigenous into distant lands with suitable soils and climates-is one of the greatest benefits that civilization has conferred upon mankind. Such measures ensure immediate material increase of comfort and profit, while their effects are more durable than the proudest monuments of engineering skill. With all their shortcomings, the Spaniards can point to vast plains covered with wheat and barley, to valleys waving with sugar-cane, and to hillslopes enriched by vineyards and coffee-plantations, as the fruits of their conquest of South America. On the other hand, India owes to America the aloes which line the roads in Mysore, the delicious anonas, the arnotto-tree, the sumach, the capsicums so extensively used in native curries, the pimento, the papaw, the cassava which now forms the staple food of the people of Travancore, the potato, tobacco, Indian corn, pine-apples, American cotton, and lastly the chinchona: while the slopes of the Himalayas are enriched by tea-plantations, and the hills of Southern India are covered with rows of coffee-trees.

It is by thus adding to the sources of Indian wealth that England will best discharge the immense responsibility she has incurred by the conquest of India, so far as the material interests of that vast empire are concerned. Thus too will she leave behind her by far the most durable monument of the

benefits conferred by her rule. The canals and other works of the Moguls were in ruins before the English occupied the country; but the melons which the Emperor Baber, the founder of the Mogul dynasty, introduced into India, and which caused him to shed tears while thinking of his far-off mountain-home, still flourish round Delhi and Agra. Centuries after the Ganges canal has become a ruin, and the great Vehar reservoir a dry valley, the people of India will probably have cause to bless the healing effects of the feverdispelling chinchona-trees, which will still be found on their southern mountains.

The introduction of the chinchona-plant into India was surrounded by difficulties from which all other undertakings of a similar nature have been free. When tea was introduced into the Himalayan districts, it had been a cultivated plant in China for many ages, and experienced Chinese cultivators came with it. But the chinchona had never been cultivated; since the discovery of its value in 1638 it had remained a wild forest tree; all information concerning it was solely derived from the observations of European travellers who had penetrated into the virgin forests; and the only guidance for cultivators in India is to be found in the reports of these travellers, and in the experience slowly acquired by careful and intelligent trials. Great as these difficulties were, they were probably exceeded by the perils and risks of every description which must be encountered in collecting plants and seeds in South America, and conveying them in safety to India.

But the vast importance of the introduction of these plants into our Indian empire, and the inestimable benefits which would thus be conferred on the millions who inhabit the

'Mr. Spruce's remark on the eventual | of the forests to convince me that whatnecessity of cultivating the chinchona ever vegetable substance is needful to tree is important. He says, "I have man, he must ultimately cultivate the seen enough of collecting the products | plant producing it."—Report, p. 83.